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Submarine Boise arrives home for holidays

NORFOLK, Va. — Nearly six months to the day it deployed, the fast attack submarine Boise returned to Hampton Roads on Tuesday. It was a crisp afternoon with anxious families waiting on the pier just two days before Christmas.

The submarine left Norfolk on June 21 and operated in the Atlantic, off Europe and the west coast of Africa.

Cmdr. Paul Snodgrass, commanding officer, said his crew of 135 completed two distinct missions, one he called a “traditional” NATO submarine role, and the other — in support of the new combatant command for Africa — he described as “maritime domain awareness.”

Forty enlisted sailors and six junior officers also earned their dolphins during the deployment.

Snodgrass praised his crew, a group especially happy to be home for the holidays.

“They are, more than anything, family men,” he said.