The Ballad of the Green Berets
"The Ballad of the Green Berets" is a patriotic song in the ballad style about the United States Army Special Forces. It is one of the few popular songs of the Vietnam War years to cast the military in a positive light and in 1966 became a major hit, reaching No. 1 for five weeks on the Hot 100 and four weeks on Cashbox. It was also a crossover smash, reaching No. 1 on "Billboard" Easy Listening chart and No. 2 on "Billboard" Country survey. "Billboard" ranked it in its year-end chart for  1966, while it tied for first with "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas "Cash Box" year-end rankings. The song was written by then Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler, beginning when he was training to be a Special Forces medic. The author Robin Moore, who wrote the book "The Green Berets", helped Sadler write the lyrics and get a recording contract with RCA Records. The demo of the song was produced in a rudimentary recording studio at Fort Bragg, with the help of Gerry Gitell and LTG William P. Yarborough. The lyrics were written, in part, in honor of  U.S. Army Specialist 5 James Gabriel, Jr., a Special Forces operator and the first native Hawaiian to die in Vietnam, who was killed by Viet Cong gunfire while on a training mission with the South Vietnamese Army on April 8, 1962. One verse mentioned Gabriel by name, but it was not used in the recorded version. Sadler recorded the song and eleven other tunes in New York in December 1965. The song and album, "Ballads of the Green Berets", were released in January 1966. He performed the song on television on January 30, 1966 on "The Ed Sullivan Show", and  on other TV shows including "Hollywood Palace" and "The Jimmy Dean Show". Popularity. The song was the No. 1 hit in the U.S. for the five weeks, spanning March 1966; also the No. 21 song of the 1960s as ranked by Joel Whitburn. The single sold more than nine million copies; the album, more than two million. "The Ballad of the Green Berets" is currently used as one of the four primary marching tunes of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. In film. The song is heard in a choral rendition by Ken Darby in the 1968 John Wayne film "The  Green Berets", based on Robin Moore's book. The film's score was not released as an album until "Film Score Monthly" released it in 2005. A movie tie-in featuring artwork from the film and a cover version by Ennio Morricone was released in Europe, though the album's other tracks were from "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More". In "The Many Saints of Newark", while Dickie Moltisanti is driving over in his car to meet Harold McBrayer for the first time, "The Ballad of the Green Berets" is playing on the radio. The cast  of the 2018 movie "12 Strong" sing the tune as their Chinook helicopter takes off. This song is featured in the 1979 film "More American Graffiti", during the first sequence of Terry the Toad's New Year's Eve in 1965 Vietnam. Other versions derivatives. Many other American recording artists did their own versions of the song ranging from Kate Smith and Duane Eddy to unknown artists singing on various drugstore records. Many versions in other languages are rewritten to reference local units; these include: