Be prepared for any contingency and always ready to work as a team.

That was the message Sgt. Maj. Patrick "Lynn" Kimble consistently hammered home to a large group of captivated Marines during a Aug. 7 speech at the Marine Security Guard School aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico about the simultaneous terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on Aug. 7, 1998.

Speaking on the 16th anniversary of the Osama bin Laden-driven attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people and injuries to thousands more, Kimble recounted the day’s tragic events in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he was serving at the time as the Marine Detachment commander and witnessed the carnage first-hand.

Tragedy struck at 10:39 a.m. local time when a suicide bomber drove a Toyota pickup truck loaded with 1,800 pounds of ammonia nitrate and exploded it alongside an embassy gate. Fallout from the immense blast was felt as far as a half mile away and left a crater 14 feet wide and 5 feet deep.

"They had done their research," Kimble told the young Marines. "They had
looked at it. They had done enough research to know the local Tanzanian guards were kind of lazy."

The attack on the embassy in Tanzania occurred at the exact same moment that terrorists had detonated another massive bomb in front of the American embassy Nairobi, Kenya, killing 213 people, including a Marine, and injuring 5,000 more.

The attack in Tanzania was nowhere near as lethal, but still resulted in the deaths of 12 people, including an American citizen who just happened to be in the embassy at the time to get a visa. Eighty-six others were injured, including Kimble’s wife, Cynthia, a former Marine whose severe eye injury required a medevac. Cynthia was soon flown to London, where she underwent two surgeries to repair the rupture of her right eye she suffered during the blast. She recovered without losing her eye.

Kimble remains proud of how his six-man Marine detachment responded in the attack’s immediate aftermath. Four were at the Marine house located a half mile away, but immediately leaped into action upon hearing the blast. The physically fit Marines needed roughly just seven and a half minutes to sprint the half mile to the embassy and climb the 16-foot wall to reach their gear. They then began helping the many wounded while assuming defensive positions around the embassy until additional help could arrive.

After clearing each room and accounting for everybody, the Marines began to destroy the many top-secret documents within the embassy’s compound. They remained on edge as they did, unsure when or if another attack were imminent.

The entire Marine detachment later received Navy and Marine Corps Commendation medals for their actions in the wake of the bombing.

"You’ve got to be physically fit," Kimble said. "You’ve got to be mentally fit. Your commander is not going to have time to tell you what to do. You have to know what to do. These Marines knew what they needed to do."

The U.S. responded to the attack with cruise missile strikes on facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan. Kimble would later derive some personal satisfaction after seeing one of the plot’s masterminds in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay.

The riveting story struck home for Cpl. Dylan Dison, a recent graduate of the Marine Security Guard School who is soon headed overseas.

"It makes me even more patriotic," he said.