Al Gore Biography

Name
Al Gore

Profession
politician

Birth Details
born August 6, 1973

Al Gore Detailed Biography

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician and businessman, 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. He was defeated in the Electoral College vote by the Republican candidate George W. Bush on a vote of 271-266 with a Gore committed Elector from Washington, DC abstaining. However, Gore did receive more individual votes than Bush. The election was bitterly contested, including multiple recounts and a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that effectively secured the election for President George W. Bush. Gore currently serves as President of the American television channel Current and Chairman of Generation Investment Management, sits on the board of directors of Apple Computer, and serves as an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management. Although speculation about a possible presidential run in 2008 still continues, he has repeatedly stated that he does not plan to return to politics.

Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert A. Gore, Sr., a politician, and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first female lawyers to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School. Since his father was a veteran Democratic senator from Tennessee, Al Gore, Jr. divided his childhood between Washington, D.C., and Carthage, Tennessee. During the school year, the younger Gore lived in a hotel in Washington, where he attended the Sheridan School, and later the elite St. Albans School; during summer vacations, he lived in Carthage, where he worked on the Gore family farm. For more information on Gore's academic records, see In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, where he majored in government. His roommate (in Dunster House) was actor Tommy Lee Jones. Gore graduated from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (Tipper Gore), whom he had first met many years before at his high school senior prom (St. Albans School in Washington, D.C.). They have four children: Karenna (born August 6, 1973), married to Drew Schiff; Kristin (born June 5, 1977); Sarah (born January 7, 1979); and Al III (born October 19, 1982). The Gores also have two grandchildren: Wyatt (born July 4, 1999) and Anna Schiff. The Gores now reside in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and own a small farm near Carthage, Tennessee. The family attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage. The Gores in late 2005 bought a condo at San Francisco's swanky St. Regis.

Gore served as a field reporter in Vietnam for four months. Although opposed to the Vietnam War, on August 7, 1969, Gore enlisted in the army to participate in the Vietnam War effort. After completing training as a military journalist, Gore shipped to Vietnam in early 1971, serving for four months before being given an honorable discharge. The chronology of Gore's military service is as follows: 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: Given an honorable discharge, after his early discharge request was granted. 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. 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 noncombatant 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. 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), 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. Gore's father, Al Gore Sr., lost the 1970 election, and was no longer a Senator by the time Gore arrived in Vietnam, but was a Senator until January 1971 which included the time his son would have received his Viet Nam assignment. Some critics charge that his father's stature led Gore's superiors to give him less dangerous assignments than they might otherwise have given him. 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; "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) "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) "I was shot at. I spent most of my time in the field." (Washington Post) "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) 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. Turque's book, however, states that said that he has no recollection of even meeting Leo, much less discussing Gore's safety with him. ... 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... 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. Gore stated in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam 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. 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.

Source: netglimse.com