So you’re the nubbiest of NUB ensigns at Prototype and it is time to rank your homeport preferences for the detailer. Are you lost? Don’t know where to begin? Well, you’re in luck. The Subpar Group will release homeport reviews for the 7 submarine homeports so you can make the best decision possible before the detailer ignores your request and gives you needs-of-the-navy orders anyway.
Let’s get started with the homeport The Subpar Group knows best.
San Diego.
America’s finest city has plenty to offer for your Junior Officer tour. Between the gorgeous beaches, the vibrant nightlife, a state of the art ballpark, incredible parks, tourist attractions, and the world class weather, there is something for every JO in San Diego.
San Diego boasts one of the country’s largest naval presence. You’ll likely have friends from USNA, ROTC, or OCS stationed here. This will be a huge help because making civilian friends when you’re constantly underway, standing duty, and working late will be nearly impossible.
You’re going to work a lot of hours on your JO tour. Your off time is precious. When you’re not at work you’ll be able to surf, run, sail, bike, walk the shoreline, attend concerts, play beach volleyball, drink craft beer, play beach volleyball while drinking craft beer, socialize with other young professionals who also hate their job, and relax like nowhere else.
But, a JO tour in San Diego isn’t just Blink-182 concerts and beach volleyball - as much as we tried to convince ourselves that it was. There are some major drawbacks to being stationed on one of the few 688s in America’s Finest City.
For starters, there are very few submarines here so if all you care about is spending time in San Diego you should’ve been a SWO. Don’t get your hopes up that you’ll be one of the lucky few 1170s each year to get stationed here.
San Diego is one of only two homeports that only houses 688 class submarines. Unfortunately for our female readers, this means that San Diego is not an option for your JO tour. (At least not yet. If you are a female 1170 wanting to select San Diego, you could try emailing your sea duty detailer once a week to see if there are any updates on the pending gender integration of 688s in San Diego.)
Note: The Subpar Group would love for someone at PERS to explain to us why there needs to be a gender integration “plan”. Just buy a male/female bathroom sign.
San Diego’s weather, one of its best features, can also pose some unique issues for aspiring PNEO-qualified JOs. It’s hard to study in a windowless room for 40 hours a week when America’s Finest City is calling your name.
Okay, the weather being too nice to study during PNEO isn’t that big of a conn, but there are some real drawbacks to San Diego. The OPTEMPO in San Diego is high. You will spend a lot of time at sea supporting exercises, working up for the next deployment, and on actual deployment. You should expect to be at sea more in San Diego than a lot of other homeports.
Finally, San Diego is expensive. BAH is more than enough to rent a super sweet place in an area you like, but if you’re looking to buy a 5 bed, 4.5 bath house half mile from the front gate on an O-2 salary, San Diego is not the homeport for you.
In our opinion, the good far outweighs the bad for San Diego.
Overall Homeport Score: 9.5/10
The Subpar Group highly recommends.
As far as not needing a plan for gender integration, I have been involved with more than one evolution that started with “Plan? Why do we need a plan? Just buy some (insert appropriate widget) and &##%ing do it.” The results were memorable and decades later make for great stories, but not big on the success scale.
The introduction was missing the part about "as if it matters" regarding ranking your choices. But did get a great VA Beach girl.