T-EMS-2
USNS Balboa
US Navy vessel
USNS Balboa (T-EMS-2) will be the eighteenth overall Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport, and second of the Bethesda-class Expeditionary Medical Ship. She will be operated by the United States Navy's Military Sealift Command.
On 27 October 2023, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced that the ship would be named after Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), which is informally known as "Balboa Naval Hospital", to "honor the legacy and commitment of Navy doctors, nurses, corpsmen, and staff of Balboa Naval Hospital in caring for the needs of U.S. Service Members". The name dates back more than a hundred years, when a naval medical tent was first erected in the middle of San Diego's Balboa Park (on the site of the present day NMCSD), for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. Also announced was ship sponsor Deborah Paxton, RN, MSN, wife of General John Paxton, the 33rd Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.[2]