Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr., (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, teacher, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. Previously, he had served as a Representative and Senator from Tennessee. Gore was the Democratic nominee for president in the 2000 Presidential election. Gore won a plurality of the popular vote, with over half a million more votes than the Republican candidate George W. Bush, but was defeated in the Electoral College by a vote of 271 to 266. Gore currently is president of the American television channel Current, chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Computer, and an unofficial adviser to Google's senior management. He lectures widely on the topic of global warming, which he calls "the climate crisis." Gore appeared on the MTV Video Music Awards on August 31, 2006 speaking about global warming. Although speculation about a possible Presidential run in 2008 continues, he has been quoted as recently as June 4, 2006, as saying, "I have no plans to run for President again,"but hasn’t ruled out a future in politics. Gore's popularity has seen a dramatic increase among grassroots Democrats, with Gore getting 68% of support among potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidates on a May 2006 DailyKos poll, and on July 13, 2006, an AlterNet poll had 35% of respondents selecting Gore as their preferred Democratic candidate in 2008. In addition, a Gallup poll released in August 2006 showed that nearly half of Americans view Gore favorably (48 percent to 45 percent). Although opposed to the Vietnam War, on August 7, 1969, Gore voluntarily enlisted in the army in order to participate in the war. After basic training at Fort Dix, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker. With seven months remaining in his enlistment, he was shipped to Vietnam, arriving January 2, 1971. He served for four months with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and for another month at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh. As his unit was standing down, he applied for and received a non-essential personnel discharge two months early in order to attend divinity school at Vanderbilt University.[13] The chronology of Gore's military service is as follows: * August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office. * August to October 1969: Eight weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. * Late October 1969 to December 1970: writer for the Army Flier newspaper at Fort Rucker, Alabama. * January 2, 1971 to May 22, 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 opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to volunteer anyway though he could have avoided serving in Vietnam in a number of ways. A friend of the Gore family reserved a spot for him in the National Guard, which he turned down. Gore has stated that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve.