The school year will end early for Enterprise Elementary principal Melanie McClure. She has been called up for active duty and will be deployed to Iraq.
Forty-six year old McClure is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. She was on active duty shortly after 9/11 but, she was deployed locally. McClure told WJLA-Channel 7 news:
“I’m not sure how to prepare for it. I think that’s probably my greatest challenge — prepare emotionally for all that because it is going to be a long haul,”
Students, faculty and parents, and school system administration are sadden to see the popular principal leave. Principal McClure has been at Enterprise for 2 years. A school-wide celebration was held in her honor this week to give her the proper send off. Superintendent Walts and School board member Julie Lucas were in attendance. Dr. Walts reminded students:
[T]hat it was their job to keep learning in anticipation of their principal’s return.
Bumper stickers have been made up in her honor, according to the story posted on the Prince William County School’s website, which read: “My Principal is a Soldier! Hurry back, Mrs. McClure.”
When is enough enough? Does the army need people so badly that they are now scrounging them out of schools? Do people think this might happen to them when they remain in the reserves? The lady is putting on her game face but she must be dying inside. She leaves a husband and 3 kids behind as well as a career while she is in Iraq.
