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Not all, but many. I know a lot of 'em. Happy double dippers.
This isn't new, not at all (though it has expanded out of necessity)--it started off, slowly, mind you, during what I called the "Cheney drawdown" that was developed at DOD under the directives of SECDEF Cheney, and implemented in the 90s during the Clinton administration. Then, the problem was trying to maintain mission capability and a viable amount of "tooth" while the drawdown was chopping away at end strength; and the way to do it was with contracted resources, mainly personnel and QOL, along with automation (sometimes successful, sometimes not), elimination of redundancies--and there were lots of those, and of course, vertical cuts to directorates (look at what happened to BUPERS, for example). This was happening across the board in all branches--it was a purple issue, not just USN. DFAS, for example, was a complete contractor operation for years; it's only recently come back into the fold as a DOD asset.
It's unfortunate that they're contracting out so much of the maintenance as well as the paper pushing, but it IS a function of mission assets shortages, and nothing more. If the Army shrinks back down to normal size, USN, even in a contraction, will get back a few assets, and maybe the tide will shift.
The homeport initiative has been in place now for what--fifteen years, at least, maybe a bit more. I'm not current with the culture these days, but it was starting to take off as a viable methodology for some quite some time ago, and selection boards were directed to specifically disregard repeat tours in the same geo area--which used to be a bit of a smudge, if not a black mark, when up for promotion--supposedly, it suggested a cautious or timid nature. The reason they went to it was ostensibly as a QOL bennie for families who didn't want to be disrupted; in reality, USN saved twenty to twenty five grand per PCS when they kept families in the same geographic location. It also made transitions from Job A to Job B much quicker--someone stationed at NAVAL STATION, for example, headed for a ship, could start doing turnover while still in the old job.
Personally,I'd never want to stay in the same area, though I can see why people with kids in school/spouse with good job might--to my mind, who wants twenty years in/around, say, Norfolk, deploying to the same damn places over and over again during sea tours? Part of the fun from my perspective is being able to play in both the east and west coast navies.
Other navies do that "stuck on one ship" routine, too. I'd hate it. I don't think we'll ever go that route, but I'm not in a position to know much if anything about it, these days. I do know it was discussed, and discarded, for, among other reasons, the "No Damn Fun" aspect along with the "career growth stifling" element as well.
As I said, though--I am totally out of the loop. I actually used to know Mike Mullen when he was "just a guy" -- a guy with potential, moving on up, but still just a guy who had a long walk from his parking spot to his desk. Now he's on the mountaintop, doesn't drive himself except on weekends, and is not far from retirement! Time marches on...
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