Number One Songs—The Ballad Of The Green Berets 
by Jack Hayford
I was 10 years old in 1966 when "The Ballad Of The Green Berets," and Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler, became an international sensation. The picture sleeve shown here is my original copy of the 45.
I was too young to know much about what was going on with the war in Vietnam. But I dug the song. (I also liked "They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha Haa!" -- go figure -- I was a weird kid.)
I got to thinking recently about Barry Sadler, who was born in 1940, and decided to see whatever happened to him. There's a lot I didn't know about his short and trauma-filled life which ended in 1989, not far from where I am writing this piece, near Nashville TN.
Released by RCA in January 1966, and fueled by the raging anti and pro-war debate of the times, SSgt. Barry Sadler's "The Ballad Of The Green Berets" shot to #1.
"The media was all over Barry. Stories appeared in Life, Time, Newsweek, Variety, Billboard and Cash Box magazines while Barry appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jimmy Dean Show, NBC’s Home Front and Martha Raye’s ABC-TV Hollywood Palace program. On Martha Raye’s show Barry received two industry gold records marking the record sales of one million copies for both the single and the album." —SizemoreMusic.com
[Note: TWO Gold Records denoted sales of 1,000,000 copies. Now, a Platinum record is awarded by the RIAA for sales of one million units. A GOLD RECORD is awarded for sales of 500,000 units: "The RIAA® Gold® and Platinum® Awards program was launched in 1958 in an effort to create a standard by which to measure sales of a sound recording. In the beginning, there was only a Gold® album award for the sale of 500,000 copies. As the industry grew, other awards were developed. The Platinum® award (1,000,000 sold) was created in 1976 and with the advent of the compact disc and the subsequent increase in sales, the Multi-Platinum™ award was created in 1984. On March 16, 1999, the RIAA® launched the Diamond® Awards, honoring sales of 10 million copies or more of an album or single." —RIAA.com]
"In 1965, while leading a patrol, Sadler was injured by a Vietnamese punji stick (sharpened bamboo covered with feces to increase the chances of infection). The infection did indeed set in, and Sadler nearly had to have his leg amputated. During his recuperation time, he sang and wrote songs for the other wounded soldiers in the hospital. One day, a TV news crew visiting the hospital filmed Sadler singing 'The Ballad of the Green Berets'; when the song was aired back home, it became an instant sensation thanks to its themes of courage and achievement in the face of adversity. RCA quickly signed Sadler to a recording contract, and he recorded a full-length album, Ballads of the Green Berets, which was released in early 1966. Finally available as a single, 'The Ballad of the Green Berets' was a monster seller, moving over two-million copies in its first five weeks of release; it spent five weeks at number one, winding up the number one single of 1966, and the album topped the charts as well. Sadler's unabashed, romanticized admiration for his fellow soldiers made him a symbol of American patriotism in a turbulent era, despite the fact that his songs didn't really make political or social statements. The Army ate him up, of course, and after several appearances on TV back home, Sadler joined the USO tour for awhile. He scored a minor hit with the follow-up single 'The "A" Team,' and went on to release two more albums, 1967's Back Home and 1968's The A Team (which, oddly enough, didn't contain that song)." —Allmusic.com
("The recording of his Vietnam songs was initiated by the urging of writer Robin Moore, author of the novel The Green Berets
This is where the story of SSgt. Barry Sadler dropped off the radar for me and most of the rest of the world.
While Sadler's career had peaked with "The Ballad...," the record's success afforded him other opportunities and he landed an acting role in the 1968 movie, Dayton's Devils
But the life of Barry Sadler, soldier of fortune and misfortune, gets even more interesting. He was convicted of manslaughter. He authored a successful series of novels. And he was shot in the head in a Guatamalan cab. Hollywood, what are you waiting for? DUH.
"Unable to duplicate his success, Sadler lived in Tucson for a while and tried unsuccessfully to make it as a bar owner. In need of money (he'd donated a substantial chunk of his royalties to a fund for the families of Vietnam casualties), Sadler moved his family to Nashville and tried to reinvent himself as a straight country singer; he did record on occasion, but the material was only released posthumously as Sadler Country. In the mid-'70s, Sadler pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter after shooting a man who'd previously threatened him in a bar (on a dark street, he mistook the man's car keys for a gun). In the late '70s, Sadler became a surprisingly successful military/adventure novelist, creating a series of books (22 in all) based on the character of Casca the Eternal Mercenary
Fighting soldiers from the sky
Silver wings upon their chest
Trained to live, off nature's land
Silver wings upon their chest
Back at home a young wife waits
Put silver wings on my son's chest
SIDEBAR: "The Ballad Of The Green Berets" has been featured in many movie sountracks, including the famous Bill Murray hit comedy, CaddyShack. Ironically, it was NOT used in the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets.
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which became a movie starring John Wayne. Moore wrote an introduction to Sadlers' autobiography, 
..." —
, alongside Hollywood venerables Rory Calhoun, Leslie Nielsen and Lainie Kazan. He also appeared in the popular TV western The High Chaparral that same year.
(a Roman soldier who supposedly speared Christ on the cross, and was condemned to live until the Second Coming). In 1983, Sadler moved to Central America to train and supply the Nicaraguan Contras, and later settled in Guatemala City, where he sold weapons and transportation to the military. In 1988, while returning to his mountain ranch house in a taxicab, Sadler was shot through the head in a mysterious robbery or assassination attempt (his son Thor believed drug runners were after his cache of guns). Although he survived, Sadler suffered severe brain damage. He was flown back to Nashville by Soldier of Fortune magazine editor Bob Brown, and though he eventually recovered consciousness and speech, he remained in a hospital bed for the rest of his life. Sadler died of heart failure on November 5, 1989." —
