00:00What this place is, is almost like a lung. It's a space.
00:03We know that when people have come from very confronting elements of First World War, Second World War, Korea, Malaya,
00:09Borneo, Vietnam,
00:11the stories we tell in the main building, they come into a bright, open space and they can reset, they
00:17can recharge, they can have a brew,
00:19and then they can enter from Anzac Day onwards, they'll be able to enter Anzac Hall and re-engage with
00:26the stories that we tell here.
00:28And the same works the other way, people who might just come to the Australian War Memorial and want to
00:32see peacekeeping, or Afghanistan, or Iraq.
00:35After they've done that, they can come back into this space again and refresh and recuperate and recharge, but still
00:43engage with objects in the collection.
00:44The sandstone blocks, which make up such a beautiful heritage building, were quarried from the Hawkesbury region,
00:51and that's the same area that the sandstone on this new wall is from.
00:56So that's a lovely little link.
00:59A lot of the furnishings that we've got in here as well, for example, these chairs are made from recycled
01:05timber from disused airfields from times of war in Australia.
01:10My name is Rod Henderson.
01:11I flew on the Blackhawk between 2002 and 2011.
01:18I know that when we went out in it, we would come home safely.
01:22I had many friends that have been in this aircraft that I served with as well who had actually crashed
01:28in it and survived just by luck,
01:31and virtue of the fact that it was the Blackhawk, with all its safety systems, that saved them.
01:37I find it humbling to see it on display because it's been such a big part of my life,
01:43but also amazing to the sense that there is now a museum piece that I was once part of,
01:49and I don't feel that old, but perhaps I am.
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