The military presence, explained

SAN DIEGO: The military is not a feature of San Diego; it is one of the city's foundations. The bay is a working naval harbor, the mesas hold air stations, and the county's northern edge holds one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the country. Here is how to read the uniformed city.

The fleet

Naval Base San Diego, known as 32nd Street, sits on the bay south of downtown. It is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, with more than 60 ships and more than 250 tenant commands, the largest naval installation on the West Coast. Up the bay, Naval Base Point Loma is the submarine base.

CDR Ed Tucholski, U.S. Naval Academy, public domain

The Coast Guard keeps a sector headquarters on the bay as well, and Naval Medical Center San Diego, known to generations as the Balboa Hospital, serves as the Navy's major West Coast medical center. The gray hulls at the piers are the reason the waterfront looks the way it does.

The Corps

The Marine Corps holds the north. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar sits on the mesa above the city, and its air show is a fall fixture. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot trains recruits on the bay near the airport. And in the county's northern reaches, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton spreads across more than 125,000 acres between Oceanside and Orange County, home of the I Marine Expeditionary Force and the Corps' major West Coast expeditionary training ground, established in 1942.

The defense economy

The military is also an economy. Shipyards, contractors, and service businesses cluster around the bases.

Sgt. Jamean Berry, U.S. Marine Corps, public domain

How to read the signs

Jets climbing out of Miramar on a weekday morning, gray hulls shifting at the 32nd Street piers, the air show's roar in the fall: the city narrates its military life in public. The Chronicle covers the fleet, the Corps and the veterans as a standing beat, because in San Diego the military is local news.

U.S. Navy, public domain