New guide explores life, legacy of ‘daring’ feminine Marine killed in Iraq

Among the many rows of white headstones in Arlington Nationwide Cemetery is one dated Dec. 6, 2006, bearing a particular six-word motto: “Be daring. Be transient. Be gone.”

It belongs to Marine Maj. Megan McClung, the highest-ranking feminine Marine officer to die within the Iraq Conflict and the primary feminine U.S. Naval Academy graduate ever to be killed in motion.

These six phrases have been the directions McClung gave to fellow public affairs officers for methods to cope with the press. However it additionally was how McClung lived her 34 years, as navy writer Tom Sileo describes in a current biography of the Marine.

Coming throughout these phrases in Arlington in 2010 led Sileo ― writer of “Brothers Perpetually,” about Naval Academy graduates Travis Manion, a fallen Marine, and Brendan Looney, a fallen Navy SEAL, and “8 Seconds of Braveness,” about immigrant and Medal of Honor recipient Flo Groberg ― to Google McClung and finally get in contact along with her now-late father, a Marine veteran who served throughout Vietnam.

After greater than a decade of corresponding with McClung’s household, associates and colleagues, Sileo accomplished “Be Daring: How a Marine Corps Hero Broke Limitations for Girls at Conflict,” printed by Fidelis Publishing on Nov. 11, 2022.

“Megan had an consciousness of the truth that a couple of issues could be a bit tougher for her as a result of she was a girl, however it wasn’t a part of her each day existence,” Sileo informed Marine Corps Occasions. “I acquired that from lots of people who knew her. It was simply, ‘I’m going to work as arduous as I have to work, and I’m by no means going to make excuses, and I’m by no means going to ask for any particular privileges.”

McClung “stood a mere 5 toes 4 inches and weighed solely 125 kilos, however her spirit was an enormous and had been since childhood,” Mike Barber of the Seattle Submit-Intelligence wrote after her dying.

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When the signup sheet for her highschool’s weightlifting class stated, “No ladies allowed,” McClung satisfied the college board to let her in, and held her personal with the boys.

When she didn’t get into the Naval Academy the primary time she utilized, she spent a 12 months at Admiral Farragut Academy, a preparatory faculty, as a part of its top quality of girls and was accepted to the Naval Academy the second time round.

When her physique may not assist her coaching as a aggressive faculty gymnast, she grew to become a gifted marathoner and triathlete.

And when her desires of changing into a Navy fighter pilot have been dashed due to air illness, she threw her efforts into getting ready to be a Marine officer and commissioned in 1995.

Risking her life

As a public affairs officer stationed at Cherry Level, North Carolina, McClung desperately needed to deploy to Iraq to “go inform the actual tales,” as she put it. Changing into a navy contractor allowed her to do this, so she grew to become one in 2004 and transitioned to the Reserve.

“For Megan, it wasn’t about spreading pro-war Pentagon propaganda, however serving to guarantee correct and well-rounded reporting,” Sileo writes in “Be Daring.” “Sure, dying and destruction have been a part of the story, however so have been the humanity and hope Megan witnessed firsthand.”

In 2004, on a deployment to Iraq as a contractor, she wrote tales and escorted journalists in Baghdad. At one level, she survived a gunfire assault that enemy insurgents launched on her automobile.

McClung went again on energetic responsibility in 2006 as a result of she needed her tales to succeed in a wider viewers — a neater job as a Marine public affairs officer than as a contractor, based on “Be Daring.” In February 2006, she deployed once more to Iraq, this time as an active-duty Marine.

On prime of her duties as a public affairs officer in Fallujah, Iraq, and later Ramadi, she accomplished a web based grasp’s diploma in legal justice and remained an avid runner regardless of the desert warmth. She even based, directed and raced alongside 107 different runners within the Marine Corps Marathon–Ahead, held in western Iraq on the identical day as the favored race in Washington, D.C.

“Even her job wasn’t sufficient for her, being abroad and risking her life,” Sileo informed Marine Corps Occasions. “She nonetheless needed to do extra, and, actually, that’s what she did as much as her closing moments.”

Fellow Marines admired her enthusiasm, humor and management, Sileo reported. A number of native tribal leaders grew to belief McClung personally. And journalists appreciated her cautious planning and her dedication to getting them solutions and entry.

It was whereas McClung was escorting Newsweek journalists, who have been within the automobile in entrance of her, that an improvised explosive machine detonated below her Humvee. The blast killed her and two troopers within the automobile.

McClung left a big imprint on the Marine Corps and past.

She has turn out to be part of Corps and Naval Academy historical past, and there are a half-dozen awards and scholarships that bear her identify, Sileo writes. In 2017, then-Commandant Gen. Robert Neller invoked her identify throughout Senate testimony on a nude photo-sharing scandal within the Corps.

“How far more do the females of our Corps should do to be accepted?” he stated in an enchantment to male Marines. “Was it sufficient when Maj. Megan McClung was killed by an IED in Ramadi?”

However “Be Daring” isn’t nearly McClung’s legacy as a Marine. Drawing on recollections from her household, associates and colleagues, and on her personal correspondence, it portrays her as a younger girl who was beneficiant to her family members and unstinting in pursuit of her targets.

In his first dialog with the Marine’s mom, Re McClung, Sileo informed her, “I’m sorry that this tragedy occurred.”

“She jumped proper in and stated, ‘No, it’s not a tragedy as a result of Megan died doing precisely what she needed to be doing,’” Sileo recalled to Marine Corps Occasions. “She and Mr. McClung each expressed that they imagine that if Megan had the chance to do it another time that she would, even if she didn’t get to reside out the remainder of her life.”

Sileo, who has a younger daughter with Down Syndrome, stated that McClung’s willpower despite obstacles has impressed him personally.

“I’m by no means going to let anyone inform my little daughter that she will be able to’t do one thing simply because she has Down Syndrome,” Sileo informed Marine Corps Occasions. “I believe that’s precisely the best way Megan approached her life. Work arduous. Do your very best.”

“And, like she stated in regards to the glass ceiling at first of the guide — she informed her mother, ‘There’s solely a glass ceiling in case you can see it.’”