College of William & Mary
Major: English
“My father is a natural born leader…In his years of service in the U.S. Army, he has built up his leadership and has exercised his talent for it, inspiring men and women to courageous tasks as well as serving the citizens of the United States of America and the beneficents of democracy. I admire my father not only for this ability of leadership, but for his careful attention to it and his deliberate use of it.”
This is what Margaret Mitchell had to say when asked about her father, Colonel Mark E. Mitchell, USA (Ret.). Then-Major Mitchell was among the first U.S. Soldiers on the ground after 9/11. He advised the Northern Alliance prior to the fall of the Taliban regime and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for “[ensuring] the freedom of one American and the posthumous repatriation of another,” during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Margaret is a recipient of the Freedom Alliance Scholarship. She is attending the College of William & Mary where she is majoring in English.
She is also participating in a joint degree program with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she will spend two years. While in high school, Margaret was involved in theatre, student government, athletics and many other extracurricular civic and church activities, including missionary work in Kenya, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.
Her dream is to become an author and her poetry won first place in the 2019 William & Mary Literary Awards. In an essay, Margaret wrote that she wanted to use her passion for writing to, “make use of her freedom, which has been gained at such a price, by revealing to others that life is worth living and that there is a freedom worth suffering for.”
