Actors - Al Gore

	Actors - Al Gore

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 currently plan to return to politics, but doesn't rule this possibility out in the future.

Early life

He attended the Sheridan school, and later the elite St. Albans School. In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, where he majored in government. His roommates (in Dunster House) were actor Tommy Lee Jones and former Columbia University women's basketball star Katie Day's father, Bart Day. Gore graduated from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

:For more information on Gore's academic records, see

Family

Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert A. Gore, Sr., a politician, a former U.S. Senator of Tennessee noted for voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 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, during summer vacations, he lived in Carthage, where he worked on the Gore family farm.

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.

Soldier and journalist

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. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair suggest in Al Gore: A User's Manual that Gore joined the military for political gain.

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.

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