General Franks parried with answers about his preparedness for war. “We have sufficient military capacity to do the job that America’s military would be asked to do.”

“Enough to win the peace?” Peter asked again.

Franks dodged again, Peter pressed again, and for a time it appeared that Peter was badgering the general. Some of us felt uncomfortable about it. But Peter felt the question had to be asked. Of course now, three years later, it seems an obvious and necessary line of inquiry. At the time, no one else was asking.

So a year has passed. And while I take a moment to celebrate Peter’s life, and mourn again for him — remembering a great friend and colleague who left us at the height of his career, and with so many other dreams and plans left unfulfilled — I am also mindful of, and grateful for, the gifts he left behind: his appreciation of the charge we have (“To think — I am paid to report and then explain events to the audience!”), the awesome responsibility of the public trust, the understanding that there is always a stone unturned when it comes to reporting a story (as he put it, “another side of the coin”) and that there is always a way to communicate a point — no matter how complex or obtuse it may seem.

Peter Jennings detested complacency. He loved a fresh idea; “I am fascinated by everything,” he said, a comment used in many of the obituaries a year ago. “I get up every day thinking that something is going to happen in the world that I didn’t know about yesterday. And I have the opportunity to pass some of that on to the audience.” Perhaps more than anything, Peter had this zeal for living and working and learning and knowing that said to the rest of us, If I am so excited by what it is we do, then you should be, too.

And so we are.

And that — for those of us who still put together the program he built — is the legacy of Peter Jennings.

Thomas Nagorski is the Senior Broadcast Producer for ABC’s World News With Charles Gibson.

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