William McRaven, the retired U.S. Navy admiral who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, told members of MIT's graduating class Friday that they are the “real heroes” who will save the world from pandemics, war, climate change, poverty and racism.
McRaven, who delivered his address online to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he grew up idolizing comic book heroes like Batman and Superman but came to see that “the heroes we need are not the heroes I had been searching for.”
“As I grew up and traveled the world, and as I saw more than my share of war and destruction, I came to the hard truth that Captain America isn’t coming to the rescue,” McRaven said. “You — the brilliant minds of MIT — you are going to have to save the world.”