Mt Soledad Memorial Day

SAN DIEGO (May 20, 2022) The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial will honor U.S. Marine Corps Major Megan McClung, and our nation's heroes through a live and virtual tribute event May 30, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. (PDT). The event will be live-streamed at: memorialdaylive.com.

McClung was the first female Marine officer to be killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 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. Major McClung was serving as a Public Affairs Officer in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Our Keynote Speaker will be U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, a retired three-star general who served as a Brigade Combat Team commander in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006 and credited with fostering the Sunni Arab Awakening movement which was instrumental in turning the tide of the war. He also commanded all coalition forces in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria from 2015 to 2016, during which time coalition forces seized the initiative, recaptured nearly half of the enemy's territory and set the conditions for the enemy's final defeat. MacFarland was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential Persons of 2016.

The commemoration will be hosted by former news anchor Marc Bailey and will feature uplifting Memorial Day video messages, musical performances by Marine Band San Diego, a wreath laying, and a missing-man flyover.  Many of Megan's former Marines colleagues that served with her and several members of the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association will also be in attendance.

The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial is one of the most unique veterans' memorials in the Nation and stands high on La Jolla's Mt. Soledad, offering panoramic views of San Diego County. It's the only Memorial that honors veterans, living or deceased, from the Revolutionary War to the current war on terrorism, with an image of the veteran. More than 5,400 individual veteran tributes, embedded on black granite plaques are mounted onto 11 curved walls honoring our United States military veterans.