My experience is a little dated, but I did Corpus for Primary and Whiting for Advanced, then came back to Whiting as an IP.
I did prefer getting to use actual ATC the whole way through RIs in Primary, BTW.
Which squadrons are "coolest" changes every year. COs and XOs rotate every 18-24 months, which turns everything upside down, plus about 1/3 of the IPs change every year.
As far as the cities go, if you don't like CC or PCola, you'd better hope you get San Diego as your final duty station, because they are both way better than the typical USN/USMC towns. I was single, liked to move, and made mad money on the DLA.
Corpus is more of a city on its own and isn't so military-centric, which was nice. You will meet a much broader range of people out on the town, for good and bad. The beaches were oil stained, but you could bring your dog out there, take vehicles loaded with beer on the beach, etc.
P-Cola is generally a more attractive town, but you can't walk the street for 5 minutes without something Navy smacking you in the face, especially since they moved all the aviation schoolhouses there. The beaches are nicer, and they actually have clubs on the beach that are fairly nice.
If you're a dyed-in-the-wool northeasterner or something (having lived in Philly for 4 years, I know of such people), you might not like the "Southern" thing (or "thang" as the case may be). Guess where half the duty stations in the Navy/MC are. Better get used to it. It has its upsides.
I've posted before, part of the key of getting by the military is learning to enjoy every duty station. Sometimes you'd be surprised what you find.
I did prefer getting to use actual ATC the whole way through RIs in Primary, BTW.
Which squadrons are "coolest" changes every year. COs and XOs rotate every 18-24 months, which turns everything upside down, plus about 1/3 of the IPs change every year.
As far as the cities go, if you don't like CC or PCola, you'd better hope you get San Diego as your final duty station, because they are both way better than the typical USN/USMC towns. I was single, liked to move, and made mad money on the DLA.
Corpus is more of a city on its own and isn't so military-centric, which was nice. You will meet a much broader range of people out on the town, for good and bad. The beaches were oil stained, but you could bring your dog out there, take vehicles loaded with beer on the beach, etc.
P-Cola is generally a more attractive town, but you can't walk the street for 5 minutes without something Navy smacking you in the face, especially since they moved all the aviation schoolhouses there. The beaches are nicer, and they actually have clubs on the beach that are fairly nice.
If you're a dyed-in-the-wool northeasterner or something (having lived in Philly for 4 years, I know of such people), you might not like the "Southern" thing (or "thang" as the case may be). Guess where half the duty stations in the Navy/MC are. Better get used to it. It has its upsides.
I've posted before, part of the key of getting by the military is learning to enjoy every duty station. Sometimes you'd be surprised what you find.
