Gore opposed the Vietnam War

When Gore graduated in 1969, he was instantly eligible for the draft. His father, an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, was up for re-election in 1970. Gore eventually determined that joining the Army would be the best way for him to serve his country, personal principles, and interests.

Gore has stated that he enlisted because he did not want someone with fewer alternatives than him to go in his place. His Harvard advisor, Richard Neustadt, also indicated that Gore determined he would have to go as an enlisted man because, as he put it, that's what most people have to do in Tennessee. Gore returned to the anti-war Harvard campus in his military uniform to say goodbye to his adviser after enrolling in August 1969 and was jeered at by students.

His orders to go to Vietnam were stalled for a while, and the Gore family felt that this was due to the Nixon administration's worry that if something happened to him, his father would earn sympathy votes. After his father lost his Senate seat in the 1970 Senate election, he was finally dispatched to Vietnam on January 2, 1971, becoming one of just about a dozen of the 1,115 Harvard grads in the Class of 69 who went to Vietnam. Although Gore opposed the Vietnam War, Gore was a journalist for The Castle Courier while serving with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa, Vietnam. In May 1971, he was honorably discharged from the Army.