Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler hits #1 with “Ballad of the Green Berets”

History.com ^ | August 28, 2021 | History.com Editors

[digger48]

We had this on a 45

[WildHighlander57]

I remember that song !!

[Gay State Conservative]

Yup,I remember it. I was 16. Who would have known that a few years later I (and one or two others) would be shaking with fear when we discovered that out barracks were right next to a barracks of “Green Berets” (1970)

[dynachrome]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugBwt2ESpo

[P.O.E.]

Used to frequent a dance club in the 70’s. The owner was a Vietnam era Marine. He used to close the place playing this song.

[TheShaz]

He was also a author - he penned “Casca: The Eternal Mercenary” book series.

[Flag_This]

Anybody read his “Casca” series of books?

[dynachrome]

Casca novels are good reads. The originals are best.

[madison10]

Same here. My older, teenage, girl cousin played and sang the song on her ukulele when we visited. I was probably 10 or so.

[dynachrome]

He had problems later on:

Sadler’s music career stalled after one marginally successful follow-up. Before long, hundreds of thousands in royalty dollars were gone to booze and bad business sense. Less than 15 years after his song hit No. 1, Sadler was charged with murder in Nashville. As that legal struggle began, so did Sadler’s successful second act as pulp-fiction novelist. After years of drinking and womanizing, he spent his final years living apart from his family in Central America, where the carousing continued. In September 1988, he was shot in the head in a taxicab in Guatemala City. Who shot him remains unclear. Sadler died the following year, not yet 50 years old.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Died on Central America-of what?

[BlueLancer]

A very funny SNL take-off on this song, with William Shatner as Ollie North ...

The Mute Marine

[Jemian]

When my son calls me, that is the ring tone.

[TheShaz]

I have the entire series on EPUB

[Fiji Hill]

The German version of the song, "Hundert Mann und ein Befehl" (100 men and one cammand) came out shortly afterwards. This is more of an anti-war song--about a soldier fighting a war "somewhere in a strange land" who thinks of his girl friend far away and thinks that the sound of crows calling at dawn signify his doom.

Incidentally, this is the second record that I bought--the first was "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen and the third was "The Ballad of the Green Berets" by Barry Sadler.

100 Man und Ein Befehl--Heidi Brühl (1966)

[Jane Long]

See post 11.

RIP soldier.

[Rembrandt]

I’ve encountered plenty of people who claim to be VN vets, but ask them their service number or favorite base or any service specific question and they quickly leave without an answer. I wonder how many of these people were protesters.

Remember Abbe Hoffman, former bomber, ended up as a trader on the Chgo. Stock Exchange. Obama’s buddy, the former Weather Underground member wrote school curricula.

[Fiji Hill]

Bill Floyd and Stonewall Jackson stick it to the anti-war protesters.

Freedom's Cause--Bill Floyd (1966)

The Minutemen (Are Turning in their Graves)--Stonewall Jackson (1966)

[Fiji Hill]

A protest song against protesters.

The Ballad of the Yellow Beret--The Beach Bums (1966)