Operations Specialist (abbreviated as OS) is a United States Navy and United States Coast Guard occupational rating. It is a sea duty-intensive rating in the Navy while most of Coast Guard OS's are at ashore Command Centers. Brief history The rating started from the radarman (RD) rating. In the U.S. Coast Guard the Operations specialist rate was formed by combining the radarman (RD) and telecommunications specialist rate (TC). When the radarman rating was split up into OS, electronics technician (ET), and electronic warfare technician (EW) ratings, the original RD rating badge continued to be used by the operations specialist. It symbolizes the radar scope (circle portion of symbol) oscilloscope radar (O-scope) used to determine a targets range from the radar antenna (the two spikes in the line drawn across the scope), and the arrow represents the ability to detect the azimuth or direction of the target. Description Operations specialists aboard U.S. Navy combat vessels work in the combat information center (CIC) or combat direction center (CDC), aka: "combat", the tactical nerve center of the ship. Using a wide variety of assets available to them, Operations Specialists are responsible for the organized collection, processing, display, competent evaluation and rapid dissemination of pertinent tactical combat information to command and control stations, upon which sound tactical decisions may be made. Beginning training (called "A" school) for operations specialist's was originally located at the Naval Training Center (NTC) in Great Lakes Illinois. In 1979 it was moved to Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, Virginia; the school has since moved back to Training Support Center (TSC) of NAVSTA Great Lakes in Illinois. Intermediate and advanced training are in locations like California, Virginia, and various locations throughout the United States Navy. An RDA school was also located on Treasure Island at San Francisco, Calif. They maintain combat information center displays of strategic and tactical information, including various plotting boards and tables depicting position and movement of submarines, ships and aircraft as well as tote boards containing data relevant to the tactical picture. They operate surveillance, tracking and height-finding radars, identification friend or foe (IFF) equipment, HF, VHF and UHF radios, tactical data link (TADIL-A/Link 11, TADIL-J/Link 16, etc.) systems and displays, and computerized consoles and peripheral equipment that allows them interface with the Aegis combat system. The tactical data links exchange data between other units in the force; i.e., ships, aircraft and other military units such