Al Gore

Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He ran for President in 2000 following Bill Clinton's two four-year terms, but was defeated by the Republican candidate George W. Bush in a bitterly contested election that included multiple recounts and a Supreme Court decision that effectively decided the election in favor of Bush. While Gore received the most popular votes, the states Bush won gave him a majority in the U.S. Electoral College and Bush was elected President. The election remains one of the most divisive and controversial topics in recent American politics.

Vietnam War service

Vietnam and journalism

Although opposed to the Vietnam war, on August 7, 1969, Gore enrolled in the army to participate in the Vietnam War effort. After completing training as a military journalist, Gore shipped to Vietnam in early 1971. He served as an Army war correspondent until May 24 of that year, slightly less than two years after he enlisted.

Related Topics:
August 7 - 1969 - Army - Vietnam War - Vietnam - 1971 - May 24

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: For more information on Gore's Vietnam service, see: http://www.evote.com/index.asp?Page=/news_section/2000-07/07052000Gore2.asp, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A44095-1999Dec28¬Found=true, http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e644.htm, as well as further information below.

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After returning from Vietnam, Gore spent five years as a reporter for the Tennessean, a newspaper headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. During this time, Gore also attended Vanderbilt Divinity School and Law School, although he did not complete a degree at either, choosing instead to run for an open seat in Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District. Gore's mother was a member of Vanderbilt Law School's first class to accept women.

Related Topics:
Reporter - Nashville, Tennessee - Vanderbilt

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Military service

Gore served in the Army from August 1969 to May 1971. The chronology of his military service is as follows:

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• August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office.
• August to October 1969: 8 weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey
• Late October 1969 to December 1970: Fort Rucker, Alabama, on-the-job occupational training at the Army Flier newspaper.
• January 1971 to May 1971: field reporter in Vietnam, part of the 20th Engineer Brigade, stationed primarily at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon.
• May 24, 1971: Discharged, after granting of routine early discharge request, as part of general troop reductions.

Gore stated many times that he opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to enlist anyway. Some observers have noted that Gore could have avoided Vietnam in a number of ways. Gore considered all these options, but said that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve. Some have suggested that Gore already foresaw that military service might be advantageous in his future career in politics.

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Gore was not shipped immediately to Vietnam after completing basic training, spending most of his term in Fort Rucker. During the 2000 presidential election, some conservatives accused Al Gore of insufficient military service, because he was "only" a journalist and spent only five months in Vietnam, which some sources have characterized as "less than half the standard 12 month Vietnam tour." Although it is true that he was a journalist, Gore served in the Army only 75 fewer days than the standard two-year term (the entire 20th Engineers was to be deactivated and shipped home that fall).

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Because Gore served as a journalist, he was never exposed to front-line combat. Although some allege that his famous father's influence helped him to obtain this position, most military analysts agree that any man who enlisted with a Harvard degree had a good chance of being assigned a support specialty rather than an infantry position (even at the war's height, 88% of all servicemen were assigned to noncombat specialties). However Gore's decision to enlist for a two year term did mean that he would not be able to select his assignment, a choice which was available to three year enlistees, and that he was technically at risk of a combat assignment even though in actuality the chances of such were infinitesimal. According to Newsweek journalist Bill Turque's biography Inventing Al Gore (which does not shy away from criticism and scandals, such as charging Gore with smoking marijuana far more frequently than he admits),

Related Topics:
Newsweek - Bill Turque - Biography - Inventing Al Gore - Marijuana

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:Dess Stokes, staff sergeant at the Newark Armed Forces Entrance and Examination Station on the day he walked in, doesn't remember any communication from superiors about Gore. A kid with Gore's background (a 134 IQ and a Harvard degree), he said, didn't need to be a senator's son with high-level contacts to get the military job he wanted.

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Once in Vietnam, some also allege that Gore received special treatment as a former Senator's son (Gore Sr. lost the 1970 election, and was no longer a Senator by the time Gore arrived in Vietnam). According to combat photographer H. Alan Leo, Gore was protected from dangerous situations at the request of Brigadier General Kenneth B. Cooper, the 20th Engineer Brigades Commander. Leo stated that Gore's trips into the field were safe, and that Gore "could have worn a tuxedo." These remarks seem to contradict Gore's many public statements;

Related Topics:
H. Alan Leo - Kenneth B. Cooper

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:"I carried an M-16. I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass and I was fired upon."(Baltimore Sun)

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:"I took my turn regularly on the perimeter in these little firebases out in the boonies. Something would move, we'd fire first and ask questions later." (Vanity Fair)

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:"I was shot at. I spent most of my time in the field." (Washington Post)

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:"I used to fly these things (combat helicopters) with the doors open, sitting on the ledge with our feet hanging down. If you flew low and fast, they wouldn't have as much time to shoot you."(Weekly Standard)

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For his part, Gore has stated that he knew Leo but rarely traveled with him in Vietnam, and that he never felt that he was being given special protection. On the other hand, Leo's testimony is that Cooper gave the orders before Gore arrived, so Gore would not know about them. The question of whether Leo frequently traveled with Gore or not still has not been conclusively answered.

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Turque's book, however, states that

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: said that he has no recollection of even meeting Leo, much less discussing Gore's safety with him. ...

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:The evidence indicates that if there was an official effort to guarantee Gore's safety, it was uneven at best. His clippings from the Castle Courier, the newspaper of the U.S. Army Engineering Command, and other publications suggest that he pulled his weight, which in his case meant choppering around to report features about the good works of the 20th Engineers... When Smith said he was scheduled to leave for R&R in Hawaii, the sergeant called for volunteers. Gore stepped up and spent a cold night in a foxhole. "Al did what everybody else did," said Mike O'Hara, the photographer who shot the Khe Sanh assignment...

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:Regulations allowed for early release of personnel to teach or attend school if their services were deemed "not essential to the mission," and Gore certainly qualified.

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Gore stated in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam

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:didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.

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