CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Teaching eighth-grade history with a personal touch, Al Gore was peppered with questions about Vietnam on a school visit yesterday. He responded by recounting his own wrenching decision to serve.
Invited to question the vice president, one student asked him why he went.
''Because the country was at war and because if I didn't go, someone else would have to go in my place,'' Gore explained during his third all-day trip to a school in two weeks.
He said, as he has before, that he felt strongly that the war was wrong. Still, he said, ''I never regretted going.''
And when teacher Sandy Simpson divided the class in half in hopes of prompting a debate between ''hawks'' and ''doves'' over Vietnam, he jumped at the chance to lead the other side. ''We'll be the hawks!'' he said with vigor, flexing his muscles.
Earlier, Simpson asked the class why more boys than girls said they were hawks. ''I think it's our testosterone,'' one boy said, to extended vice presidential laughter.
Gore has promised to hold regular ''school days,'' as he works to solidify his credentials on the education issue. Democrats have traditionally enjoyed an advantage on education, but Texas Governor George W. Bush, Gore's likely opponent this fall, has made it clear that he will not surrender the issue.
Service in Vietnam has been an intense issue in earlier presidential campaigns, but it hasn't come up much in this race. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard during Vietnam.
The Gore campaign had scheduled a question-and-answer session with reporters yesterday - the Bush camp has criticized the vice president for not having a news conference in weeks - but the idea was dropped because of rising emotions and uncertainty surrounding the Elian Gonzalez case.
''The situation in Florida is so volatile, we thought it was best not to be dragged into it,'' said campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway.
