 Clark Davis Ivins was born in Yandina in 1919, a small country town just near Nambour, north of Brisbane, and he grew up in a family with eight children, six girls, two boys, and a very happy family. He actually took up a trade of a house painter, but of course in 1939, outbreak of World War II, he decided to join the Army and he enlisted actually not until 1941, he enlisted on the 1st of July 1941, enlisted in the 2nd 12th Battalion, and was shipped out to the Middle East Theatre of Operations. That was of course at the time, very soon after Japan entered the war, and of course the great tussle between Churchill and Prime Minister Curtin for the Australians to be brought back into the Asian Theatre, into the Pacific Theatre to defend against the Japanese advance. And of course, Clark was part of that wave that came back from the Middle East into Papua New Guinea, and he fought at the Battle of Milmbay in Papua New Guinea in 1942. He was shot and badly wounded in that battle, and then several months later, just after his 24th birthday, he passed away because of those wounds. He'd had obviously a very short life, but a remarkable life in terms of world history and in terms of world events. In a way, forced by the circumstances of war, he'd be home the first great traveller in the family. I mean, he was the first member of his family to leave Australia, let alone even Queensland. As the family has aged, as we all do, and Clark's siblings, the six sisters and his brother Brian, many of them of course have passed away, and now there's only two of the sisters left, my mother Lorna and her older sister, my auntie Rita, who's now 98. And I could tell with my mum in the last couple of years that she was getting a bit concerned about what to do with the artefacts of Clark's life, his war medals, the documents, who would look after it. And I got a real sense, and we talked about it, that she was a bit saddened that his memory would be lost, that it would slowly over time disappear from that family legend, family history. And that's where we came up with the idea of a memorial prize, or an award, which honoured his memory and the family history, in an area where it was related in a sense to his life experience. So we chose the Security Studies Program in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs in the Strategic and Defence Study Centre, which was the obvious place to establish a prize like this in honour of a military service, national service, in a period of international crisis and war, given the strength, particularly in SDSC and the Strategic and Defence Study Centre of their work in military history, defence studies, so on. So we thought a prize for a young student that sort of captured the study of international security of defence via fitting tribute to my uncle Clark, to my mother's brother, and to the family in general.