Attack of the USS Stark. May 17, 2012

USS Stark, a Perry class guided missile frigate, was under the command of Captain Glenn R. Brindel and was part of the Middle East Task Force.  She was sailing off the Saudi Arabian coast near the Iran–Iraq War exclusion boundary, the area of sea off Iran and Iraq. The Iraqis attacked with a French built Dassault Mirage F1 armed with 1,500 pound Exocet missiles.  It took off from the airbase of Shaibah at 20:00 and headed south into the Persian Gulf also along the coast.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Begins. 3-19-03

The Iraq War, or the War in Iraq (also referred to as the Occupation of Iraq, the Second Gulf War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom by the United States military), was a conflict that occurred in Iraq from March 20, 2003 to December 18, 2011, though sectarian violence continues since and caused hundreds of fatalities.  Prior to the war, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their security and that of their coalition/regional allies.