-Caveat Lector-
Here's the entire article that the LA Times buried on page A1.
4-5 other publications, including NewsMax, have reprinted the
guts of it so far ...
Los Angeles Times
October 15, 1999, Friday, Home Edition, Part A; Page 1; National Desk
HEADLINE: STRUGGLE WITH CONSCIENCE WAS GORE'S BIGGEST VIETNAM
BATTLE; SERVICE: AFTER AGONIZING OVER WHETHER TO BE PART OF WAR
HE OPPOSED, THIS FORTUNATE SON SAW A BRIEF TOUR OF DUTY.
BYLINE: RICHARD A. SERRANO, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Albert Gore Jr. was 21 that summer of 1969 when he
confronted Vietnam, the draft and an early test of his manhood.
He had just graduated from Harvard, where he joined in anti-war
protests that had split college campuses across the country. He
had spent his summers on the family farm outside of this small
town, and he knew that many of the local boys were heading off to
the Army.
Over the next two months Gore would struggle with a decision:
Should he follow his ideals and defy the draft, or join the tens
of thousands of other young men gone to war?
On a more personal level, should he refuse to go and risk hurting
his father's next reelection bid to the U.S. Senate, where Albert
Gore Sr. was one of the nation's leading critics of the war?
Evading the draft might make his father look unpatriotic.
His search for an answer would take him from the family farm in
Tennessee to the doorstep of a Harvard instructor on Cape Cod,
Mass. It would plunge him into a series of long, wrenching
debates that failed to ease his dilemma.
Finally, it delivered him, about to be drafted, to the federal
building in Newark, N.J., where surprised Army recruiters
listened as he told them who he was and what he intended to
do--sign up.
Those crucial months in 1969 offer insights into the man who
would become vice president of the United States--and who now
aspires to the presidency.
What emerges is a portrait of a young man discovering the cruel
contradictions between his beliefs and sense of duty, between
loyalty to family and commitment to a cause. His deliberations
show the slow and painstaking approach that has become a
trademark of his decision-making style as a political leader.
Gore's anguish over the decision also provides a glimpse into his
unsettled place in the world of privilege; he would not exploit
his special advantages but would not fully reject them either.
Unsettled Place Amid Privilege
Many young men with famous names or elite educations--and many
without them--were able to avoid the war in Vietnam if not always
active duty. In 1969, 21.8 million men from the ages of 18 to 26
were eligible for the draft. About 283,000 were inducted into the
armed services that year.
Rather than seek an out, Gore went voluntarily. He became Spc. 5
Gore in Vietnam, where he was stationed with the 20th Engineers
Brigade headquarters near Saigon. In some ways, he was one of the
guys, playing poker and drinking, smoking cigarettes and
sometimes marijuana with his buddies.
But in other ways, he was apart from the fray. He served as a
news reporter and not a combat soldier. His reporting duties took
him to potentially dangerous spots. But like some other
servicemen in support specialties, he was never in actual combat,
his fellow soldiers say.
Several of his colleagues remember they were assigned to make
sure this son of a prominent politician was never injured in the
war. After five months, he returned home at his own request when
his job was being phased out.
Nevertheless, Gore the politician over the years sometimes has
been inclined to describe his Vietnam days as though he was in
the thick of the war.
On the campaign trail today, while he suggests no combat heroics,
he nonetheless mentions his service in Vietnam proudly.
Addressing 4,000 veterans last month at the national American
Legion convention in Anaheim, he spoke of the curse of that war
and how "few respected our service, much less welcomed us home."
But Gore also said, "Some of the greatest times of my whole life
were times spent with my buddies in the Army."
Gore declined to be interviewed for this article.
In the 2000 presidential campaign, the Vietnam draft experience
continues to be a benchmark for Gore's generation of national
leaders. The old themes of the war surface so often that it is
clear they never left.
John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy admirals, is a
Republican senator from Arizona. But he is better known as a war
hero; his book about his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in
Vietnam, issued in conjunction with his campaign, is a
bestseller.
McCain's main rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Gov.
George W. Bush, missed Vietnam by serving in the Texas Air
National Guard--a slot critics say he received through
connections from his father, then a U.S. congressman.
Gore's opponent in the Democratic contest, former Sen. Bill
Bradley of New Jersey, served in the Air Force Reserve from 1967
to 1978 and saw no active duty.
Harvard Brimming With Anti-War Fervor
Gore, the youngest of these candidates, was still in college when
public support for the war began to sour. Harvard, like many
campuses, was a caldron of anti-war fervor.
John Tyson, one of Gore's Harvard friends, said he and Gore both
signed anti-war petitions in the dining hall, attended rallies
and talked for hours about what they saw as the misguided pursuit
of an unwinnable conflict.
"He was against the war," Tyson recalled, "but he wasn't one of
those guys who considered himself a revolutionary, who was
against America." He became "enraged," Tyson recalled, when some
protesters talked about securing some dynamite.
Gore, viewing Vietnam as more than a local conflict, worried
about whether it would become a flash point for nuclear war. "He
had scope," Tyson said. He added that Gore "listened to his
father. He emulated him."
In the summer before his senior year, Gore helped his father
write his landmark speech against the war at the 1968 Democratic
National Convention in Chicago.
The senator noted that 25,000 U.S. soldiers--less than half the
final death count--had died in Southeast Asia. "What harvest do
we reap from their gallant sacrifice?" he asked.
Outside, anti-war protesters clashed with police in what became a
major turning point for the peace movement at home.
Martin Peretz, who taught Gore in a seminar on the political
culture of post-World War II America, said "very, very few" of
Gore's classmates went into the service. Many sought other ways
to stay out of the service.
So few made the journey from Harvard to Vietnam that when one of
Gore's friends, freshman Denmark Groover III, interrupted his
studies to join the military, many of his classmates ridiculed
him.
Gore wrote his girlfriend, Tipper Aitcheson, that, while he
admired his friend's "courage and rashness," he did not know
whether his own views would allow him to follow Groover's
example.
"It's wrong, we're wrong," he wrote, according to letters
published last week in Talk magazine. "A lot of people won't
admit it and never will, but we're wrong."
By the time Gore graduated in June 1969, anti-war sentiment drove
a hundred angry students to walk out of the commencement
ceremony. Others tore up their diplomas; half of the senior class
raised clenched fists.
When Gore left school, his student deferment expired. He was
staring straight into the draft. Like others opposed to the war,
his options were stark. He could apply for conscientious-objector
status. He could try to land a spot in a reserve or National
Guard unit, although the waiting lists were long. He could flee
to Canada or end up in jail.
Many of the sons of Carthage were already in Vietnam. One of
them, James H. Wilson, had been killed earlier that year, on
Gore's 21st birthday.
"I don't want to spend any more time over here than I have to,"
Wilson had written in his last letter home. In all, eight young
men from Carthage and surrounding Smith County--whose population
then was 15,000--died over there.
"This is a small rural county, and there always seemed to be a
load of them going, five or six or seven at a time," said Edward
S. Blair, a boyhood chum of Gore's.
"A lady ran the local draft board, she was the supervisor, and
she would send notices out. Then a group of boys would catch the
bus at the Trailways station near the old river bridge and go to
Nashville for their exams.
"It would have gone down badly had he Gore not gone," said Blair,
now the U.S. marshal in Nashville.
But Gore was a product of two worlds: rural Tennessee and
political Washington. If the norm for boys from the Volunteer
State of Tennessee was to enlist, the standard was much different
for the sons of lawmakers.
A report from that time by Congressional Quarterly showed that
234 sons of senators and congressmen had reached draft age during
the Vietnam era. Half of them received deferments. Of the rest,
only 28 went to Vietnam, 19 into combat.
The subject of privilege was all the more apparent in a hit song
in 1969 by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Gore loved rock 'n' roll
and memorized the lyrics of many songs, including "Fortunate
Son." He told friends the refrain haunted him:
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no.
But now was decision time, and Gore began to turn to those
closest to him. Sometimes he seemed on the brink of a decision
but then would suddenly reach out for more guidance.
A first stop was at the family farm.
Sen. Al Gore Sr., interviewed in a video for use in his son's
current presidential campaign, recalled the visit.
"He and I took a walk back on the farm. Then we came back in here
and had lunch." Suddenly, the father remembered, his son stood up
and announced, "I believe I'll take a walk. Alone."
"So," the senator recalled, "he walked to the bluff back of the
farm and came in and his mother and I were seated in here,
continuing to discuss the matter.
"We asked him and recommended to him to use his own judgment. His
mother and I assured him we would support his decision whatever
it was. But it was his decision. And I particularly asked him to
not take into consideration any political matter as his decision
might affect me. Whether he did take that into consideration, I
don't know. I hope not."
After his solitary stroll, his son walked back into the house and
blurted out, "I've made up my mind. I'm going. I'll volunteer
tomorrow."
But he hesitated, and, joined by Tipper, next sought out his
former instructor Peretz at his home on Cape Cod.
It was the weekend of the first moonwalk. When Gore wasn't
watching television, he asked Peretz how he could be true to
himself without endangering his father's anti-war position--or
the life of someone he knew from Tennessee.
" 'My draft board is small,' " Peretz quoted Gore as saying. "
'If I don't go, someone I played baseball with or went to church
with or shoveled horseshit with will go in my place.' "
Peretz, now chairman of New Republic magazine, said he never
advised students on how to handle the draft, and Gore left, still
uncertain.
Soon after, he took a train to Newark, N.J., where he joined
Harvard pal Tyson at a downtown diner. They ate lunch, then
talked long enough to get hungry again.
Gore was eating one French fry at a time. Should he go or
shouldn't he?
Abruptly, Gore sprung to his feet, Tyson said. "He was ready."
They hurried the few blocks to the nearby federal building and up
to the Army recruiting station on the fourth floor.
Astonishment at Recruiting Office
Sgt. Dess Stokes ran the office, and he and his recruiters were
astonished to see who walked in, he recalled. They all knew of
Sen. Gore, especially Stokes, who had already done one tour in
Vietnam and, like many soldiers, shared the senator's opposition
to the war.
In the recruiting station, Stokes handed Gore some paperwork and
explained how volunteering for the draft, rather than waiting to
be inducted, could keep him out of the infantry. Noting that Gore
was a Harvard man, Stokes told him he could get into
communications, maybe become an Army reporter.
Having reached the moment, Gore stepped away and telephoned his
father. When he returned, he signed the papers. He was in the
Army.
His two-year hitch was to run until August 1971, and his first
assignment after basic training was in the Army media pool at Ft.
Rucker, Ala. There he learned to write press releases and short
newspaper stories.
Richard Abalos, who bunked with Gore at Ft. Rucker, had a tan
1962 Chevy four-door, and many in the unit would pile in and
drive to Panama City, Fla., renting a dilapidated beach house for
the weekend. They would play bridge and poker, barbecue steaks
and drink cheap beer and wine, including one inexpensive label
called Tickle Me Pink.
Gore has admitted that he smoked marijuana in the Army; there was
plenty of pot to pass around. "It usually was on the beach in
Florida," said Guenter "Gus" Stanisic. "But hell, the MPs
military police smoked. Just about everybody in the Army smoked."
In April 1970, Gore was named Post Soldier of the Month, a
citation awarded to soldiers who demonstrated leadership
qualities. The honor came with a $ 50 savings bond.
A month later, in a ceremony at the National Cathedral in
Washington, he married Tipper.
By summer, his father--who died last year--was being challenged
for his Senate seat by Rep. William Brock, a Chattanooga
Republican and supporter of the war.
Brock said that young Gore's decision to enlist did not appear to
help or hurt his father. "I didn't see any change with what young
Albert did," Brock said.
But the Gore campaign tried its best to show that Sen. Gore,
while against the war, was still a patriot. The team produced a
television commercial in which the senator rode up on a white
horse and told Al, dressed in Army fatigues, "Son, always love
your country."
When Gore received his orders for Vietnam, just five weeks before
the November 1970 election, his father announced it publicly:
"Like thousands of other Tennessee boys, he volunteered. . . .
Like other fathers, I am proud."
But the orders to Vietnam were delayed, and Gore would not ship
out until Christmas. The family believed President Nixon
postponed the orders to deny Sen. Gore any political boost from
having a son in Vietnam on election day.
After three decades in Congress, Gore lost to Brock by 4% of the
vote. And by the end of 1970, his son was in Vietnam.
Gore arrived in Vietnam nearly three years after the Tet
Offensive, the so-called turning point in the war. By that time,
the U.S. troop withdrawals ordered by Nixon had begun, and South
Vietnamese forces were taking over a larger share of the
fighting.
But U.S. forces were continuing their bombing campaign against
North Vietnam and also conducting raids into Laos and Cambodia.
Although both sides had reached a stalemate, the war would drag
on several more years.
Though far from the action, young Gore was shaken by what he saw.
"When and if I get home from Vietnam," he wrote his friend
Abalos, "I'm going to divinity school to atone for my sins."
Other soldiers with long experience in Vietnam said that Gore was
treated differently from his fellow enlistees. Two of them
recalled that before Gore arrived Brig. Gen. Kenneth B. Cooper
advised them that a senator's son would be joining the outfit.
H. Alan Leo said soldiers were ordered to serve as Gore's
bodyguards, to keep him out of harm's way. "It blew me away," Leo
said. "I was to make sure he didn't get into a situation he could
not get out of. They didn't want him to get into trouble. So we
went into the field after the fact after combat actions , and
that limited his exposure to any hazards."
Cooper, however, said Gore "didn't get anything he shouldn't
have."
Gore covered the 20th Engineers Brigade, based 30 miles northeast
of Saigon, as it cleared jungle and built and repaired roads and
bridges in the war zone.
In his most ambitious piece, he re-created a battle at a fire
support base code-named Blue near the Cambodian border, which a
group of Viet Cong had tried to overrun.
"On the night of February 22nd, there was no moon," Gore wrote.
"The men sacked out early as usual, soon after the movie was
over--'Bloody Mama' with Shelley Winters as the maniac
murderess--the guards were posted as usual--the password was
'four.' "
'He Took Risks' During Tour
Fire Support Base Blue was as close as Gore came to combat. Mike
Roche, editor of the engineers' Castle Courier newspaper, said it
took courage to go to the fire base, even if the battle was over.
"He was tanned and he had the bleached-out fatigues and . . . he
was doing war-related stories," Roche said. "He took risks."
Veterans said a standard tour in Vietnam was 12 months; Gore was
out in five. Early releases were not uncommon at the time,
though. The 20th Engineers was departing Vietnam, which meant the
Army no longer needed a reporter assigned to the brigade.
Gore also was approaching the last months of his two-year
commitment. In March, with less than three months in Vietnam, he
requested an early release and was told the next day he could
leave in May to return to school.
When he left Vietnam, Gore flew to Oakland, along with Army pal
Bob Delabar. At the airport bar, they hoisted drinks and parted
ways. "We both got smashed," Delabar remembered. "And it wasn't
on beer."
Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt University's divinity school but
stayed only a year and left to take a job in Nashville as a
reporter for the Tennessean, where he worked for four years.
When the House seat from his dad's old district opened up in
1976, Gore ran and won. He later was elected to his father's old
Senate seat. The Army and Vietnam came up in his campaigns; he
often portrayed his experience as more dangerous than it truly
was.
In 1988, running for president, he told Vanity Fair magazine, "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."
He told the Washington Post: "I was shot at. I spent most of my
time in the field."
"I carried an M-16 . . . ," he told the Baltimore Sun. "I pulled
my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant
grass and I was fired upon."
For the Weekly Standard, he described flights aboard combat
helicopters. "I used to fly these things 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."
Any location in Vietnam was potentially dangerous during the war.
But eight men who served there with Gore said in separate
interviews that he was never in the middle of a battle. Gore
himself has toned down descriptions of his wartime activity
during the current campaign; he now emphasizes that he was in
Vietnam as a news reporter and not as a combat soldier.
As he runs for the presidency this time, old Army pals sometimes
show up at political events. Abalos appeared at a Gore rally in
San Antonio; Delabar sat in the front row at the American Legion
convention in Anaheim.
His enduring ties to his Army buddies appear to reflect an inner
connection between Gore the reluctant soldier and Gore the
national politician and presidential candidate.
At the American Legion convention, he told the veterans, "There
will always be the bond between who we were and who we are."
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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