During the early 60's we were told that 96s were illegal to be granted at the command level and could only be granted by higher echelon. Sure was nice when a a real sailor came out with Z-57

Ah...the famous Z grams!!! I loved that guy! He came out with one that said you could grow your hair longer. THe CO on the Ship called all hands not on watch to the messdecks. He came in, read the message word for word then said " What this means is that the CNO says you can grow your hair longer...I say you can't"!.

And that's why Zimwault had such a hard timwe getting anything changed...Glad he kept on trying though!

We had a teletype machine in the display room at COSL and whenever a Z-Gram started coming across the wire, everyone would rush over to the machine to read it. It was always great news for sailors! We had a lot of respect for Admiral Zumwalt.

The 2-2-2-80 provided the rewarding opportunity to EVERY watch section to do field day EVERY week!

Bill Turner
Former OT2
USN 68-72 KEF and COSL

Nick,
Your input sounds the most like an answer to the original question.
I would have thought, with former OPSOs and OPS LCPOs weighing in on the subject, that we would finally have the mystery solved for us. But, I guess like many other SOSUS oddities, it must have boiled down to the usual: that's how the Commodore likes it!

Tried to get that at Brawdy my second tour but the OPS boss said we would have to be retrained after 120 off

Getting called back in on a Mid-Eve swingback for a missed contact or misannotation generally helped to hone those analytical skills. Not saying that I was ever called back in by the direction of George.

John

Even better, getting called in on a swingback because your number came up on the Golden shower lottery!

2-24-2-96

The best!