Mark Donaldson grew up in Dorrigo in northern New South Wales. His father, a Vietnam veteran, died of a heart attack when Mark was fifteen; his mother disappeared two years later and has never been found. He drifted, worked, and then enlisted — infantry first, then the Special Air Service Regiment in 2004.
On 2 September 2008 a joint Australian, American and Afghan convoy was ambushed in the Khaz Oruzgan valley by a force of perhaps a hundred fighters. The fight ran for three and a half hours over more than four kilometres of road, with vehicles burning and almost every Australian vehicle hit.
Donaldson spent it out of cover on purpose. He deliberately drew fire away from wounded men being moved between vehicles, ran back to recover a stranded gun, and kept the enemy's attention on himself so the casualties could be loaded.
Then the convoy discovered that an Afghan interpreter had been left behind, wounded, beside a disabled vehicle. Donaldson turned and ran eighty metres back down the road alone, into the fire, picked the man up and carried him to the vehicles. Every account of it — Australian, American and Afghan — says the same thing.
He received the Victoria Cross for Australia from the Governor-General in January 2009: the first Australian VC in forty years. He was named Young Australian of the Year, wrote a book, and has spent the time since speaking honestly about post-traumatic stress — the part of the story, he says, that nobody hands out medals for.
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