
Trooper Mark Donaldson, 29, joined an elite band of ten VC survivors for his selfless act during a two-hour battle with the Taleban on September 2 last year. At an awards ceremony in Canberra, Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, said: Generations of schoolchildren will now know of the story of Trooper Mark Donaldson. It is a story of a hero, one which will be told in classrooms, workplaces and watering holes for many years to come. He and his comrades had been pinned down by a hail of machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades after a patrol of Australian, American and Afghan special forces was ambushed by the Taleban in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan. Several of his comrades were wounded in the attack, and to draw the fire away from them he broke cover, laying himself open to attack by the Taleban who were well dug in. The SAS trooper darted from cover to cover, firing as he went. This selfless act alone bought enough time for those wounded to be moved to relative safety, his citation reads. As the wounded were removed from the scene, Trooper Donaldson ran alongside, as there was no room for him in the armoured Humvee vehicles. When he spotted a severely wounded Afghan interpreter who had been left behind, he ran across 90 yards of open ground, grabbed the injured man and carried him to safety, under constant from the Taleban. During the withdrawal, the SAS trooper gave first aid to the wounded as he continued to fire on the Taleban. Of the dozen <b>...</b>
Mark
Donaldson
SAS
Victoria
Cross
warandtactics