I am always asked why I chose to go to MIT.  I tell job interviewers it was because I wanted to test my limits. I respond to coworkers with tales of roller coasters and giant robots. My parents believe it was to become a highly-paid political commentary food blog writer at an independent website collaborative. These are all lies. The truth is much deeper. It started earlier. For you, and only you, here is the epic that is my story.

When I was seven, my parents bought me an SNES so that I could make friends.  It worked.  People would come to my house to play video games for days on end, starting with Super Mario World and expanding from there to a variety of side-scrolling awesome.  One game, however, rose above all others.  The graphics were crisp, the gameplay tight, the score epic.  U.N. Squadron-be a mercenary pilot, earn money for kills, buy planes and special weapons, kill terrorists, destroy everything in your path, and save the planet all in two dimensions.   The game was addictive.  It was very addictive.  There was only one problem.  It was hard.  It was very hard.  Other games came and went. They were beaten and forgotten, but UN Squadron lingered.  It mocked me, but every time we attempted to teach Project 4 the respect we deserved, we were bested.  We weren’t even able to reach the final boss.

January 17, 1995 was a sad day for the allied forces of Area 88.  I was with three of my closest video game friends when we decided that our strategy wasn’t working.  Rather than wearing the enemy down, the results of our labors were blisters and trench foot.  However, before we parted ways, we made a pact, that in 14 years, we would meet again, and on that day, we would play again.

And so it goes.  After not talking to each other for the rest of my youth, we left the land of our humble upbringings. I went to MIT to study optimal budgetary allocations and weapon effectiveness.  Steve went to flight school to become a pilot and aeronautical engineer. Jim never went to college, instead honing his reflexes and social skills by playing World of Warcraft. Bill became a writing studies major.

There was a chill in the air on the night of January 17th, 2009, as if the planet trembled in anticipation of the saga to conclude.  Were the last 14 years of our lives a waste? Would we find ourselves in the same predicament?  After blowing the dust out of the cartridge and hooking up the SNES to the TV, we began.  Armed with tab and power bars, we fought.

The fighting in this area is ferocious.  Only fate will determine if we live or die.  No truer words were ever displayed in the intro of a video game.  And so it was that, after a tumultuous 6 hours of play, we reached further than we had ever before.  But would it be enough?  Our continues were exhausted, our life count depleted, our life bar low when we saw the final boss–a flying battleship carrier.

The night of January 17th will forever linger in my memories.  It was the moment, in the words of Bill Pullman, that the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. Thank you, Bill.  Mission Accomplished.