It was a small operation that didn't run well at all and had a lot of issues, few of which I encountered at ECRC which was a smooth and well-run machine compared to the utter waste that Gulfport was.
Not sure it will fix the broken ECRC detailing system. I LIVED in SAN DIEGO, and they sent me to NORFOLK for ECRC. It certainly would have been nice to be home during the wasted week of sitting around. I believe ECRC is really set up to handle RC IAs. Most AC IAs had all their shit complete prior to showing up to ECRC....thus being a waste of time.
Don't worry, they wasted the RC people's time, too. I had an AWR sit over there for three days (fortunately in San Diego, at the time) before she could see the "right" person to sign off her last check box so she could then go across the bridge to actually do her job.
I went through NMPS San Diego for my AC IA in '07 and it was a day and half of work crammed into 5, but as Naval sins go, that's hardly unique. I was stationed in Pensacola at the time, and while I'll never complain about an easygoing week in the Whale's Vagina on per diem, it was kind of a waste of USG money, considering I could've almost commuted to Gulfport.
Having gone through this process once as AC, three Mobs, and one ADSW, my general impression is, if you show up with your shit wired and for something they're prepared to do (ie, Afghanistan, HOA, Tampastan), it's all on rails and you'll be stamped and cleared out the door with a minimum of pain. If you show up waiting to be told what to do, or if you're a Special Case, be prepared for the big hurt. This isn't my first rodeo so I was able to dodge some wrenches, but even so there were a couple AYFKM moments. I will say that the process has gotten better since my first RC mob in '13 and light years better than '07.
But I think all this kind of speaks to the Skipper's point. ECRC is wired to do one thing: get the lowest-common-denominator RC dude ready to go downrange, and they've got good at that. But if the Chinese invade Honolulu next week or some damn thing, and we're mobilizing
everybody - this-is-no-shit, all-hands-to-battlestations - there's zero excess capacity the way things are now. So re-gen'ing the other NMPS sites makes, I think, a certain amount of good sense.
Then again, I'm also a couple of Maker's deep, so I'm inclined to be philosophical.