was appointed Surgeon General in March 2002, and Major General William A. Navas Jr., who was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy on June 6, 2001. Operation El Dorado Canyon On April 14, 1986, in response to acts of terrorism sponsored by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi—in particular, the Berlin disco bombing of April 6—and against the backdrop of heightened tension and clashes between the Libyan and U.S. Navies over Libya's disputed territorial water claims in the Gulf of Sidra, the United States launched a surprise attack on key facilities in Tripoli and other parts of Libya. The attack was code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon. With the acquiescence of the British government, 24 U.S. Air Force F-111F fighter-bombers took off from U.S. air bases in England. Attacking in the pre-dawn hours of April 15, their main objectives were 22 airfields, terrorist training camps, and other military installations. Captain Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci was one of the pilots who participated in the Libyan air raid. His F-111 was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast. Ribas-Dominicci and his weapons systems officer, Captain Paul F. Lorence, were the only U.S. casualties. Al-Qaddafi, who was also personally targeted, escaped harm, but his daughter was killed. Gulf War and Operation Restore Hope In 1990, 1,700 Puerto Rican National Guardsmen were among the 20,000 Hispanics deployed to the Persian Gulf in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm as part of the Gulf War. Four Puerto Ricans lost their lives, including Captain Manuel Rivera Jr. of the Marine Corps, a Puerto Rican from the South Bronx, who on January 22, 1991, became the first Marine, and therefore the first Hispanic, to be killed in Operation Desert Shield. Rivera was killed during a support mission over the Persian Gulf. On January 30, 1991, the U.S. House of Representatives paid tribute to Rivera. During this era Haydee Javier Kimmich, from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, was the highest-ranking Hispanic female in the Navy when she was promoted to the rank of captain (O-6). Kimmich was assigned as the Chief of Orthopedics at the Navy Medical Center in Bethesda and reorganized their Reservist Department during Operation Desert Storm. In 1998, she was selected as the woman of the year in Puerto Rico. Operation Restore Hope was an American military operation with the support of the United Nations that was formed to