school, which would open in mid-1983. Although there was some disagreement about the purpose of the course, army leaders and the course designers settled on a plan to provide officers with a "broad, deep military education in the science and art of war." In June 1983, the first class of 13 US Army students began in the basement of Bell Hall at Fort Leavenworth. Initially, there were some internal problems with facilities and scheduling, and in the school's early years there was uncertainty whether its graduates would be accepted and how they would perform in the force. When the first class graduated in 1984, SAMS had already become "the symbol for intellectual renaissance in the officer corps". When the first director, Wass de Czege, was succeeded by Colonel Richard Sennreich in 1985, the school was already beginning to produce results and the US Army and the college regarded SAMS as a "useful experiment". By 1987, enrollment of high-quality officers had risen and sister services were becoming interested in sending students to SAMS. The program's growing popularity and reputation also began attracting students from allied countries. SAMS graduates first saw active service in December 1989 during Operation Just Cause in Panama. A core planning cell of seven SAMS graduates "crafted a well rehearsed and well executed plan that simultaneously struck some roughly 50 objectives in a single coordinated blow". According to Colonel Kevin Benson, the tenth director of the school, "The Army and SAMS faced a test of battle and the new group of highly-educated planners appeared to have passed the test with flying colors." After its mission in Panama, the army's leaders began to draw on SAMS to assist in additional ways. In the early 1990s, US Army leaders called upon the school to help develop army doctrine. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas E. Mitchell, Colonel James McDonough (the fifth SAMS director), and other members of the SAMS team helped revise the US Army Doctrinal Manual 100-5 Operations in 1990–1993. Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan noted that SAMS graduates were indispensable in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. They were expected to "re-engineer the decades of planning that had gone into the GDP [General Defense Plan] almost overnight". Swan stated that this was "the first true test of SAMS on a large scale". SAMS graduates served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and were