Gore Tells Students Vietnam a ‘Mistake’

The discussion in the eighth-grade history class that Al Gore visited Thursday was about the Vietnam War, and on one point he was quietly insistent: “I wasn’t drafted--I volunteered!”

As the vice president spent his second campaign day of the week in a school setting, he found himself part-observer, part-participant in the lesson taught by Sandy Simpson. He readily joined the side of the “hawks” in an exercise that divided the students into those supporting the U.S. role in Vietnam and those opposing the policy that divided the country during the 1960s and into the ‘70s.

But when one student asked whether he would have pursued that involvement had he been leading the country then, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee was adamant: “No, it was definitely a policy mistake.”

Vietnam is one of the touchiest issues in Gore’s political history. His father’s opposition to the war was seen as the primary reason for his defeat when he sought a fourth U.S. Senate term from Tennessee in 1970. And as a draft-eligible young man, the future vice president agonized over military service at a time when many of his friends were avoiding it.

Ultimately, he decided to volunteer for the Army and was stationed near Saigon. He served as a news reporter and was sent home after five months.

Gore has never claimed to have been in combat, but at times in his political past he has been accused of exaggerating the danger he faced in Vietnam.

As yet, military service has not been an issue in the presidential campaign. Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, flying jet fighters based in Texas.

Simpson, the teacher, asked Gore on Thursday if he could remember his draft lottery number.

“Oh, no, I don’t--I think I went in just before that happened,” he said.

The teenagers in the class wanted to know about his experiences in the war. He told them about traveling throughout South Vietnam in early 1971, by jeep, helicopter and airplane, to seek out news stories.

The discussion took place at the Marie G. Davis Middle School in Charlotte. Gore says he is planning to visit one school nearly every week during the campaign--and will continue such visits if elected president--to focus on the needs of education in the United States.

His aides had planned for several days that Gore also would hold a news conference--his first since he spent about 15 minutes answering reporters’ questions on Feb. 19. But ultimately the session was canceled. An aide said the campaign decided the Elian Gonzalez dispute would likely dominate questions, especially given the flap Gore caused recently when he publicly broke with the Clinton administration and urged that the residency status of the 6-year-old Cuban boy be decided by a court in Florida rather than the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS has ruled that the boy should be returned to his homeland to live with his father rather than remain in Miami with relatives.

“With the situation in Florida so volatile, we thought it was best not to be dragged into it,” said Doug Hattaway, a Gore spokesman.

The vice president arrived at the school at 7 a.m., an hour before the students, to meet with the teachers. He spent eight hours on the campus, a collection of one-story brick buildings connected largely by covered walkways.

As he has on his two previous school visits--in Ohio earlier this week and Michigan earlier this year--he visited classrooms, ate in the cafeteria with the students, talked with parents and spent the preceding night in the home of a teacher.