Major Megan McClung attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1995. On December 6, 2006, McClung was serving with the I Marine Expeditionary Force as the Marine Corps head of public affairs for Al Anbar Province, in charge of embedded journalists.

Her headstone is engraved with her mantra, fitting perhaps for someone whose life was short but lived so well: “Be bold, be brief, be gone.” McClung was the first female Marine officer to be killed in the Iraq war, as well as the first female graduate of the United States Naval Academy to be killed in action since the school was founded in 1845.