Sadler, Barry (1st November 1940 - 8th
September 1989)
Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was a decorated Vietnam
war hero and recording artist who co-penned a song called "The Ballad
of the Green Berets" with Robin Moore at what one could argue was the
height of anti-war sentiment.He first performed it in Vietnam where he would often entertain his
fellow soldiers by singing and playing the guitar.One day, a TV news crew showed up,
and the entire nation got to hear and see the song being performed.Record execs soon were on the phone
courting Sadler.In 1966,
"The Ballad of the Green Berets" was released by RCA
records.It became an instant
sensation, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks and eventually
selling over nine million copies.It ended the year as the #1 single of 1966, and ended the decade as
the #21 record of the 1960s.It
even went #28 in the U.K.Not
bad for a patriotic song that was a throwback to the gung-ho songs of World
War II.Its popularity
unearthed the fact that there was a counter-counterculture out there that
wasn't entirely anti-war.Perhaps its massive success drew upon the American desire to want to
believe in an optimistic outcome in Vietnam.In any case, "The Ballad of
the Green Berets" was in sharp contrast with the protest songs of the
period.Sadler wrote it at the
behest of Robin Moore, who had written a book called The Green Berets.Moore also contributed a fraction of the lyrics.Two years later, a film of the same
name would be released featuring no one less than John Wayne himself,
putting an even more optimistic spin on an unpopular war, and using
Sadler's composition as its main theme.He went on to record an entire album
of Vietnam-inspired songs, reputedly on one hour of sleep, wrapping up the
session at around eleven oclock.Of these, only "The
A-Team" managed to chart, climbing as high as #28.After a brief and uneventful foray
into a country-music recording career, the restless Sadler pursued another
one of his interests, writing books.The main character, Casca, was based on the rapscallion who stabbed
Christ while He was on the cross, and is therefore doomed to wander
eternity as a soldier.Although
the series enjoyed a twenty-five volume run, Sadler actually only wrote the
first few, and the rest were assigned to ghost writers and still attributed
to him.He was still publishing
the Casca books after having emigrated to Guatemala City in the
mid-'80s.The reason for
his relocation is unknown, but it followed a tragic indicent in which he
shot a man to death, allegedly a stalker who was brandishing what looked to
maybe be a gun, but turned out to be a set of car keys.Sadler pled guilty to the charge of
second degree manslaughter, serving a month in a halfway house.Unfortunately, it would not be the
last time he would be involved with deadly gunplay.This time, he would be on the wrong
end of the gun.Although the
details are hazy, the consensus seems to be that Barry Sadler was shot in a
taxi cab in Guatemala City.The
reasons for the shooting, and the identity of the shooter, are still
unknown.Theories abound, of
course.One even puts the gun
in his own hand.Guatemalan
laws were so tough that the cabbie had to serve a year in prison just for
being there.Sadler was
air-lifted out of Guatemala by his friend Bobby Brown, the editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine, and
taken to a VA hospital.The
wounds to his head had rendered him nearly unrecognizable.The prognosis was not good,
either.He was basically kept
alive for a little over a year and spent much of that time in a coma.In a bizarre twist, at one time his
comatose body was stolen.Although
it is unclear exactly where he died, reports vary from
the VA hospital to a Guatemalan Hospital (unlikely, as he had been
transported to the States) to his mother's house, but there is little
doubt that Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler passed away on 8th
September 1989.
Barry Sadler
recordings
The Ballad of
the Green Berets (Robin Moore/Barry Sadler)
