USS Theodore Roosevelt Leaves the Shipyards After 18 Difficult Months that Included 3 Suicides

CPO David R. D. - Not a Big Fan of "TPUs" Now Air Force Quarters? I Love Air Force Quarters! Spent a Night at Fort Richardson, Not Impressed, Also did a Night at TPU Philadelphia, Half the Building is the Restricted Barracks the other Half is the TPU, Not a Good Environment!

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel - The good thing about TPU's, they are temporary and I was headed to "shore duty".
On the positive side, for two weeks I had to work in the PSD office, and all I did was pull or file service records for the Sailors assigned to the various SSBN's at Bangor. I ended up with an O6 Letter of Commendation for my efforts in reducing the work load on those permanently assigned to that PSD. ;)

CPO David R. D. - Oh My God, I Remember My Courier Runs to SUBBASE Bangor and Doing Courier Runs to Other Ships for the EWs. Something about One of the Few with a "Get Out of Jail Free Card" LOL! It Sucked in the Gulf Though Going with the COMMO to Pick Up CMS. Too Damn Hot Out there!

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel - In Alameda, I accompanied CTO2 Toby Webster to Coast Guard Island when they had traffic guard for us. Toby did all the work and talking, I was just the 2nd person. "TPI" :)

Training, lots of training.
CTMs are maintenance guys, they can maintain the gear as long as we have power. That can happen in port or at sea.
ITs (CTO) are the comms guys, they can monitor comms as long as receiving antennas are operating, but most times a shore unit will do what is called "comms guard duty" and will pick up our classified comms traffic from that station. Transmitting antennas are usually not authorized to work while the ship is tied to the pier for safety reasons.
CTAs (Admin types) can do their jobs anywhere, as long as they can receive message traffic.
CTTs and CTRs are the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) operations guys and gals, so they are the ones whose jobs primarily happen at sea.

CPO David R. D. What about the guys on deck that work it and the planes

Those are different Rates (MOSs). In port, the Airwing squadrons go back to the airbase they are assigned to and carry out their daily business. Airedale Sailors permanently assigned to an aircraft carrier can conduct training and drills in port, but they won't be launching or trapping any aircraft.

One thing to know, the reason sea duty is so arduous is that the ships don't spend any extended time in port. Unless the ship is going through a maintenance availability period which can range from a few weeks to two or three years for a carrier, the ships spend a lot of time at sea operating off the coast of southern California (for west coast ships). All my sea time was on the west coast.
Its not uncommon for ships to get u/w on a Monday or Tuesday and spend 7 to 10 days at sea, then come back to port to load up on supplies for a few days then head back out to sea to continue training. Sea duty will result in a lot of family separation time. If I remember correctly, I figured out once that on my first ship, the USS Arkansas, I spent about 2/3s of my 38 month assignment out to sea, and 8 months of the in port time was an eight month drydock period. The Arkansas spent a lot of time underway (u/w).