Base History – 2024 – The Puget Soundings

The year 2024 did not arrive with a flourish. It came in the way most years do at the Bremerton Base, with a meeting called to order, chairs filled, coffee poured, and a familiar voice carrying the room through the ritual that binds submariners across generations. The pledge was spoken. The creed followed. Then came the Tolling of the Boats, the names of lost submarines and their crews read into a silence that never quite feels empty.

That is how the year began. Rooted in memory. Grounded in purpose.

But even in those early months, something was already shifting. You could feel it in the way conversations lingered a little longer after meetings, in the way leadership spoke about the future without quite naming it. The base was preparing for a change, and not just any change. A passing of the watch that would mark a first in its long history.

Spring carried that sense forward. The business of the base never stopped. Reports were given, committees continued their work, and the steady rhythm of meetings held everything together. But beneath it all was anticipation. Leadership does not simply change in an organization like this. It is handed off, carefully, deliberately, like a responsibility that cannot be dropped.

When the change of command came, it was not treated as routine. It carried the weight of tradition. The outgoing commander stood not as someone stepping away, but as someone completing a watch. The incoming commander stepped forward with the understanding that she was not just taking a position, but assuming a trust that had been built over decades.

And with that, Ileene G. Davis took the conn.

It is easy to say that she became the first female Base Commander, but that phrase alone does not quite capture the moment. What mattered was not novelty, but continuity. She stepped into a role defined by service, responsibility, and expectation, and she did so with a tone that was unmistakably grounded. Later in the year, she would write that she hoped she was filling the shoes she had stepped into. It was not a statement of doubt. It was an acknowledgment of what the position demanded.

Once she took command, the pace changed. Summer did not ease in. It arrived at full speed.

By July, the base was moving with purpose. Meetings were held, events were planned, and the calendar filled quickly. Davis described it as nonstop, and there is no reason to doubt that. The eBoard worked alongside her, sharing the load in a way that suggested not just structure, but trust. When she was away for family obligations or base events, the Vice Commander stepped in without disruption, a quiet sign that the system worked.

The annual picnic came and went, not just as a social gathering, but as a reaffirmation that the base could still come together in the ways that mattered. People showed up, not out of obligation, but because they wanted to be there. That distinction is everything.

The work of the base extended beyond gatherings. September brought one of the more demanding efforts of the year, the Spaghetti Feed and fundraiser. It was not glamorous work. It required planning, coordination, and a full slate of volunteers. Kitchen crews, runners, cleanup teams, all organized like a watch bill. The kind of event that either reveals weakness or proves strength. In this case, it proved strength. People stepped up. The work got done.

There were other efforts woven through those months. Recruitment at Bangor Family Day, where members stood not just as veterans, but as representatives of something still living. There was a quiet determination in that effort, a recognition that the future of the base depended on reaching those who had not yet walked through its doors.

At the same time, the base was refining itself. Processes were being streamlined, roles clarified, and there was a steady push to ensure that no position stood alone without backup. That detail may seem small, but it speaks to something deeper. The base was not just operating. It was preparing to endure.

As summer gave way to fall, the tempo did not slow. It shifted outward.

October brought events that placed the base squarely in the community. Trunk or Treat at Bangor, where submariners handed out candy to children who likely had no idea what a ballast tank was, but would remember the interaction all the same. The Kitsap Halloween Bash followed, a gathering that blended veterans, families, and the public into something that felt less like an event and more like a shared space.

Then came November, and with it the weight of Veterans Day. Parades in Poulsbo, ceremonies at the Kitsap Pavilion, moments where the base stood in formation with others who had worn the uniform. These were not performances. They were acknowledgments. A visible reminder that service does not end when the uniform is put away.

The quieter work continued as well. Wreaths were placed at Ivy Green Cemetery, each one marking a life, a story, a sacrifice that would not be forgotten. There is no applause in those moments. No audience. Just a handful of people doing what they believe must be done.

By the time December arrived, the year had settled into something that felt complete.

The Christmas gathering at the VFW Post in Silverdale was simple by design. No cost to attend. Bring a dessert if you can. Pass the hat for those who needed it more. It was not elaborate, and that was the point. It was about being together, about closing the year not with ceremony, but with fellowship.

There was even room for a bit of humor. A chili cook-off, members bringing their best recipes, tasting, judging, arguing good-naturedly over whose was better. It sounds trivial. It is not. It is the kind of thing that reminds people why they come back.

Looking back across the year, the events themselves tell only part of the story. Meetings were held. Funds were raised. Parades were marched. Ceremonies were attended. But those are the visible markers. The real story lies in the way the base carried itself through all of it.

Leadership changed, but the mission did not. A new commander took the helm, but the course remained steady. The base adapted where it needed to, reached outward when it could, and held tight to the traditions that defined it.

If there is a single thread that runs through 2024, it is this quiet continuity. Not the absence of change, but the ability to absorb it without losing identity.

A new voice calling the meeting to order.
A new hand guiding the work.
The same names spoken during the Tolling of the Boats.

And in between all of it, people showing up. Again and again.

Because that is what keeps a base alive.

Not the ceremonies. Not the titles.

The people who walk through the door, take a seat, and decide, once more, that this still matters.