kellyjasper.com

MSNBC.com reporter Martin Wolk published a piece online today about his decision to walk away from 9/11 five years ago. He escaped the south tower, where he was covering a business meeting, just after the first plane hit. The next day he left New York.

I have no idea what I would have done. Some days it’s nice to think I would have stayed. Other days it’s nicer to think I would have done just as he did, leaving even more urgently than he had, perhaps.

Either way, I’m grateful for the people Wolk honors with his work. His reporting proves that every-day joes like John Roccosalva are extraordinary with extraordinary stories to tell.

How he sat down to ever write it, I don’t know. Wolk says even the nuts and bolts of journalism were lost that day. He couldn’t read his notes. He couldn’t remember who he spoke to. He writes, “For me, it was a humbling lesson in the fallibility of memory even on a day when so many details were burned unforgettably into my mind …

“For my generation 9/11 will always be the marker date — the before-and-after, the where-were-you, the date when everything changed. For me it was also the day when I was presented with a very clear decision — and I chose my role as a husband and father over my role as reporter and editor. And I will never regret it.”