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                <text>Danielle Williamson/Daily News staff</text>
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                <text>By Danielle Williamson/Daily News staff&#13;
GHS&#13;
Tue Apr 17, 2007, 12:07 AM EDT &#13;
&#13;
NO DATA - For Bill Saam, the slaughter yesterday at his alma mater resurrected the shock, sadness and anger he felt when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.&#13;
&#13;
"On a personal level, the feeling I had today was very much the way I felt on 9/11," said Saam, a Northborough resident and 1992 Virginia Tech graduate.&#13;
&#13;
An active member of the college&amp;#39;s alumni association, Saam was in touch yesterday with other classmates who struggled to comprehend the news.&#13;
&#13;
"It&amp;#39;s very much a tight-knit community," he said. "I hope no one from New England is directly affected by this."&#13;
&#13;
Saam described Blacksburg as a "small, rural area."&#13;
&#13;
"You don&amp;#39;t hear about crime down there, never mind shootings," he said.&#13;
&#13;
For Milford native Jim Pyne, a 1993 Virginia Tech graduate, yesterday&amp;#39;s murders are a sad reflection on the state of society.&#13;
&#13;
"We have people who fly planes into buildings ... and screwballs who have guns and shouldn&amp;#39;t have them," said Pyne, a former professional football player. "It&amp;#39;s the society we live in, and it&amp;#39;s just despicable."&#13;
&#13;
Pyne, who was an All-American at Virginia Tech and played nine seasons in the NFL, said he watched much of the news yesterday but "couldn&amp;#39;t keep watching it. It doesn&amp;#39;t seem real."&#13;
&#13;
"I&amp;#39;ve been in all those buildings. I took classes there," Pyne said. "I feel for the parents of the 33 kids and I&amp;#39;m horrified about what happened and what it&amp;#39;s like for them."&#13;
&#13;
Peter Darby of Charlestown, who leads the New England chapter of Virginia Tech&amp;#39;s alumni association, said the Boston area has 1,300 alumni, many of whom were in contact with each other yesterday.&#13;
&#13;
"We&amp;#39;re stunned just numb," Darby said.&#13;
&#13;
For Waltham native Marcus Ly, the shootings were particularly difficult to comprehend.&#13;
&#13;
"I called a lot of my friends in Blacksburg. They&amp;#39;re all OK," said Ly, a Virginia Tech grad student speaking by phone yesterday from Minneapolis. "But it&amp;#39;s just a lot of confusion, they don&amp;#39;t really know anything more than we do reading the headlines."&#13;
&#13;
A 1995 Waltham High School graduate, Ly finished a graduate school program in industrial and systems engineering at Virginia Tech last winter.&#13;
&#13;
"It&amp;#39;s really the equivalent of something like this happening in Weston," said Ly, trying to describe the town of Blacksburg, home to the 2,600-acre Virginia Tech campus. "It&amp;#39;s one of the safest cities I&amp;#39;ve ever lived in and I&amp;#39;ve lived in a lot of cities."&#13;
&#13;
Natick&amp;#39;s Chris Mitchell, a junior at Virginia Tech, never imagined such horror could occur on the campus.&#13;
&#13;
"It&amp;#39;s a small town and a university where everybody knows everybody," Mitchell, an economics major, told WCVB-TV. "It&amp;#39;s the last place where you&amp;#39;d think something like this would happen."&#13;
&#13;
Newton resident Theodore Fritz recognized the buildings photographers captured throughout the day.&#13;
&#13;
"I&amp;#39;m certainly transfixed here," said Fritz, a 1961 Virginia Tech graduate who watched television reports throughout the day.&#13;
&#13;
A Boston University professor, the killings affected Fritz both as a college educator and a Virginia Tech alumnus.&#13;
&#13;
"I think this probably could have happened anywhere," he said.&#13;
&#13;
Danielle Williamson can be reached at 508-490-7475 or dwilliam@cnc.com. Daily News staff writers Albert Breer and Nicole Haley contributed to this story.&#13;
&#13;
--&#13;
&#13;
Original Source:Framingham,MA - The MetroWest Daily News&#13;
&lt;a href="http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/local_news/x1298126656"&gt;http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/local_news/x1298126656&lt;/a&gt;&#13;
&#13;
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