Mark Donaldson

Mark Gregor Strang Donaldson, VC is an Australian soldier and a recipient of the Victoria Cross for Australia, the highest award in the Australian honours system. Then Trooper Donaldson was a member of the Special Air Service Regiment when he exposed himself to enemy fire to protect injured troops and then rescued an interpreter under heavy enemy fire in the Battle of Khaz Oruzgan during Operation Slipper, the Australian contribution to the War in Afghanistan. He was presented with the medal by the GovernorGeneral of Australia, Quentin Bryce, in a ceremony in Canberra onJanuary 2009. OnJanuary 2010, Donaldson was named the 2010 Young Australian of the Year. He was promoted to corporal in June 2010.

Donaldson was born onApril 1979 in Waratah, New South Wales, the younger son of Greg, a Vietnam War veteran, and Bernadette Donaldson. He grew up in the small northern New South Wales township of Dorrigo, attending Dorrigo High School, a small state public school, until 1996. In 1995 his father died suddenly of a heart attack and Mark and his brother became wards of Legacy, one of their legatees being a former member of the same Army unit their father had served in.

Source: Wikipedia