High-ranking female officer from Pendleton killed
By: MARK WALKER and JOE BECK - Staff Writers
CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine major from Camp Pendleton has become the highest-ranking female service member to die in Iraq since the start of the war.
Maj. Megan McClung, 34, a Camp Pendleton public affairs officer who was serving with the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, was killed Wednesday in the insurgent hotbed Anbar province in a roadside bomb explosion in the city of Ramadi.
"She was a Marine's Marine and an outstanding public affairs officer," Col. Darcy Kauer, commanding officer at the I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group at Camp Pendleton said in an e-mail provided to the North County Times. "She was a great friend to all who served with her. Her death has shocked and saddened all who knew her. She will be deeply missed."
McClung was reportedly working with a journalist on a story in downtown Ramadi when the bomb was triggered.
According to icasualties.org, a nonmilitary database that tracks U.S. casualties, McClung is the highest-ranking woman to have been killed. A Marine Corps spokesman confirmed Monday afternoon that she is the highest-ranking female to be killed.
Sixty-four U.S. service women have been killed since the 2003 invasion, and McClung is the fourth female Marine to die.
Under U.S. military rules, women are prohibited from combat assignments. Those of have been killed have largely died as a result of accidents, attacks on convoys from small arms fire, roadside bombs or suicide bombers.
McClung, a native of the small western Washington town of Coupeville along Puget Sound on Whidbey Island and a triathlete, became a commissioned officer in 1995. She was promoted to major in June of this year.
Reached by telephone at the family home, McClung's father said he and other family members were withholding comment for now.
Lt. Col. Bran F. Salas, a public affairs officer with the Multi-National Force-West in Iraq, told the North County Times in an e-mail that McClung was devoted to helping the media cover the conflict.
"She was an advocate of media coverage of military operations," he wrote. "While in Iraq, she managed the media embed program, developed public affairs plans for operations and found time to organize the Marine Corps Marathon."
She was quoted in the newspaper last year before that force deployed the she and the Marines and sailor were training hard and ready for its mission.
In a November story in The Times of London, England, noted that McClung had "earned the respect of her male colleagues by outrunning them and organizing a base marathon." The marathon she helped organize was named the "Marine Corps Marathon (Forward)" and was conducted at the U.S. base at Al Asad in memory of U.S. service personnel killed in the war.
McClung also spent time in the public affairs office at Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C., and left active service in 2004. She returned to duty last year from what was then her status as Marine Reservist.
In postings in her memory on a Web site, people who say they knew her are writing about her zeal for running, her dedication to the Marine Corps and her duties as a public affairs officer. She was single.
The other female Marines to die in Iraq are Lance Cpl. Juana NavarroArellano, who died April 8 from small arms fire; and Cpl. Ramona M. Valdez and Lance Cpl. Holly A. Charette, who each died from injuries in a suicide car bombing on June 23 of last year, according to icasualties.org.
For more as this story develops, check back with nctimes.com or see Tuesday's North County Times.