Survivor Excited to Return to Va. Tech

Virginia Tech senior Colin Goddard talks about his thoughts on returning to classes at Virginia Tech while at his family's home on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2007, in Richmond, Va. Goddard was shot four times during the April attack but doctors say he will make a full recovery. (AP Photo/Lisa Billings) (Lisa Billings - AP)

RICHMOND, Va. -- Colin Goddard does not know how he will feel when he returns to Virginia Tech and meets other victims of the April 16 massacre. He does not know how he will react when he steps into a classroom on Monday.

But as he stands in his parents' driveway, scrubbing the little car he'll soon fill with clean clothes, frozen pizzas and supplies, he knows he's not afraid to return to the Blacksburg campus where he was shot four times.

The lanky 21-year-old chats animatedly about seeing his frat buddies again, hitting the bars and planning a post-graduation backpacking trek through Europe. He feels excitement, not trepidation.

It's not that he doesn't think about the attack, he says. Every day he sees the bright red scars left by gunman Seung-Hui Cho's bullets. The leg where a metal rod supports his shattered femur still aches. Three bullets remain lodged in his body; doctors say it is easier to let them be.

But after a summer of volunteer work and climbing mountains, Goddard says he can put what happened in perspective.

"It could have been a lot worse, put it that way," he says. "I think that's why I'm kind of the way that I am, because I will be able to do everything that I was able to do before. There's nothing that is now impossible for me."

His childhood prepared him for change. His parents, devoted to humanitarian causes, moved often. Born in Kenya, Goddard was raised in Somalia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt and Georgia. He chose Virginia Tech because of its military and technical programs, though he later switched to international studies.

He doesn't regret attending French class on April 16. After a late start that morning, he briefly considered playing hooky. But with the end of the school year looming, he chose to go.

Some say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time _ a sentiment Goddard vehemently rejects.

"I was in my class on Monday morning where I was supposed to be," he says. "It was the right place to be at the right time."

He never saw Cho's face, and the killer never spoke a word. Goddard shut his eyes and tried to play dead. He remained silent as Cho shot him again and again. The gunman eventually killed himself as police closed in.

After his release from the hospital, Goddard spent a few weeks recovering in his off-campus apartment. In June, he returned to Norris Hall with a police officer to see the classroom. Doing so has taken away much of the anxiety he may have had about returning to class this year, he says.