Do Military Branches Share Bases?

So I've been doing some military research, looking at which branch I might join after high school, and I was wondering, do different military branches ever share bases? Or does each branch have separate bases?

Yes, different branches of the military do share bases at times. These installations are often called joint bases, and they are the result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, which started in the late 1980s to consolidate military facilities and save costs.

For example, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington is home to units from both the Army and the Air Force. Another example is Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, which hosts units from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and even the Department of Defense education system.

However, it’s also common for each branch to have separate bases. For instance, Fort Bragg is primarily an Army base, while Naval Station Norfolk is exclusively a Navy base.

Note that when it comes to training, many paths will require you to spend time at a specific location determined by your job assignment within the military. For instance, Air Force flight training doesn’t take place on a joint base—it’s held at specific Air Force bases. Similarly, the Navy's basic training occurs at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois, which is a Navy-specific base.

So while branches sometimes do share bases, your training may take place at a base that is specific to your branch. And even within joint bases, operations are often separated to some degree, with different branches operating in different sections of the base. You might also find the branch culture to be different from base to base, even when they are shared.