Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., was born on March 31, 1948, in Washington, D.C. His father, Albert, Sr., was elected to the House of Representatives in 1939, and in 1952 he began a Senate career that would last until 1970. The younger Al was raised in the elite circles of Washington, where his family groomed him for politics from an early age. He graduated from Harvard and shortly thereafter enlisted in the army, serving in Vietnam for five months of his two-year military service. Before he left for Vietnam, Gore married Mary Elizabeth (Tipper) Aitcheson. He was discharged from the army three months early in order to pursue religious studies at Vanderbilt University, and he also began a five-year career as a journalist for the Nashville Tennessean. In 1974 Gore enrolled in law school at Vanderbilt.