CLAREMONT, N.H. -- Stevens High School invited Al Gore -- "Brother Buck" to his military buddies -- to speak Friday about his experiences in Vietnam. But no student questioned the vice president about Vietnam -- reflecting, perhaps, the dying flame of the 1960s conflict as a political issue.
"We're a part of the world today. We weren't part of Vietnam," said sophomore Kevin Clarkson.Sixteen-year-old Nick Larusso, caught up short when a reporter asked if he would register for the draft at age 18, thought for several moments before replying, "I suppose we could have asked (Gore) about whether war could happen in five or six years."
Separately, Gore defended his mingling of campaign objectives with "official" travel on the taxpayers' dime. And he heightened his criticism of Democrat rival Bill Bradley, calling the former senator from New Jersey -- home to several large drug companies -- "a champion for the pharmaceutical industry."
Gore looked forward to making another Capitol Hill endorsement official, this latest one expected from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry on Saturday.
In a gymnasium decorated as if for a homecoming pep rally, Gore told hundreds of students that the United States' "Vietnam war policy" was a terrible mistake.
He repeated the sterile, thumbnail story he's told on the stump and in TV ads that ran for 22 days in this first-in-the-nation presidential primary state: He signed up for the Army, went to Vietnam, came home "as disillusioned as anybody you ever met."
"Your moms and dads told you how the country was divided," he supposed, before inviting questions.