The Daily History Chronicle

On August 7, 1990, President George H. W. Bush ordered the start of Operation Desert Shield  and sent the first American troops into Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, to stop Saddam Hussein from moving south. The men who went knew they were speed bumps. What no one put in writing was how long they would stay. Eight years later, to the day, two truck bombs detonated outside American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing two hundred and twenty-four people. The date was not a coincidence.