left 241 American servicemen dead. The only on-scene Navy physician was killed, along with 18 Navy hospital corpsmen. Two dental officers assigned to the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit coordinated emergency trauma care with 15 hospital corpsmen, treating 65 casualties in the first two hours following the explosion. LTs' Bigelow and Ware would later be awarded Bronze Stars for their leadership and emergency medical services. Additional dental personnel aboard the USS Iwo Jima joined medical teams ashore to provide care and support for survivors. In July 1984, the Navy began conversion of two supertankers to hospital ships. The USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort were placed into service in December 1986. With 1,000 beds and 12 operating rooms, each ship can provide comprehensive dental services in two operating rooms, four dental treatment rooms, and a dental laboratory. More recently, when the four battleships– Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin– were re-commissioned, dental spaces were upgraded to provide high quality dental support. In March 1986, the Naval Dental School moved into its new spaces in Building 2 of the Bethesda Complex. What had begun as the Dental Department of the United States Naval Medical School in 1923 has evolved into a state of the art, fully accredited, Naval Graduate Dental School, recognized as one of the best in the world. Navy Dental from the 1990s - today With the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and the commitment of U.S. Forces to the region, detachments of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dental Battalions deployed in support of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions. Dental Battalion personnel ultimately established 21 dental clinics in 3 countries, in such places as the Marine Airfield at Shaik Iza, Bahrain; the Port of Jubail in Saudi Arabia, and in the desert sands of northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The hospital ships Comfort and Mercy brought their dental assets to the war effort, and active and reserve dental personnel were deployed with each of the three Fleet Hospitals. In all, more than 90 dental officers and 300 dental technicians deployed in support of Desert Shield and Storm. In 1992, civil unrest in Somalia erupted into all-out tribal war. In December, Marines of the 1st Force Service Support Group arrived in Mogadishu, and personnel from the 1st Dental Battalion provided dental care for Marines in country. In support of the State Department's peacekeeping efforts, they also provided humanitarian