Apr 17, 2007 5:07 am US/Pacific
Bush To Speak At Va. Tech Convocation For 33 Dead
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
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The president and first lady Laura Bush planned to travel to the university in Blacksburg, Va., to attend the afternoon convocation to help the university begin healing following the tragedy. (File)
AP
President Bush will speak at Tuesday's convocation at Virginia Tech to remember the 33 people who died in two campus attacks and comfort others affected by the deadliest campus violence ever in the United States.
The president and first lady Laura Bush planned to travel to the university in Blacksburg, Va., to attend the afternoon convocation to help the university begin healing following the tragedy.
After the shooting on Monday, Bush expressed shock and sadness about the killings. He lamented that schools should be places of "safety, sanctuary and learning."
"When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom in every American community," Bush said at the White House.
Bush has spoken with Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, who said a student was the gunman in at least the second of the two shootings.
Two hours after two people were killed at a dormitory, 30 more people were killed at a campus building by a gunman who finally killed himself with a shot to his head.
"I told them that Laura and I and many across our nation are praying for the victims and all the members of university community that have been devastated by this terrible tragedy," Bush said.
In Jordan, meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who left a job as president of Texas A&M to take the Pentagon post late last year, expressed his condolences for the tragedy.
"As a recent president of a university that only about seven and a half years ago had its own tragedy when 12 students were killed when the bonfire collapsed at Texas A&M, perhaps more than most I can understand the horror and the emotions at Virginia Tech," Gates told reporters traveling with him. "Knowing the lasting impact of the 1999 bonfire collapse at Texas A&M, I can only imagine the emotional impact of what has happened at Virginia Tech."
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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