SSG Barry Allen Sadler

Barry Allen Sadler was an American military veteran, author, actor, and singer-songwriter. He was born in Carlsbad, NM, November 1, 1940 to John Sadler and Bebe Littlefield. Sadler served as a Green Beret combat medic with the rank of Staff Sergeant of the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Most of his work has a military theme, and he credited himself as SSG Barry Sadler, although his music credits read SSgt Barry Sadler. He is most famously known for his hit song "Ballad of the Green Berets."

Sadler dropped out of high school during the tenth grade in Leadville, CO and enlisted at age 17 in the US Air Force. After completing airborne training, he volunteered for the US Army Special Forces. Following lengthy training as a combat medic at Fort Sam Houston, TX, he was sent to South Vietnam. During May 1965, while on a combat patrol in the Central Highlands southeast of Pleiku, he was severely wounded in the knee by a feces-covered punji stick. He developed a serious infection in his leg, and was flown to Walter Reed Hospital in the United States, where his doctors were forced to surgically enlarge the wound to drain it and to administer penicillin. While he was recuperating, he heard Senator Robert F. Kennedy dedicate the new JFK Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg. Sadler promised himself that if he successfully recovered from the infection, he would give away the rights to a song he was then helping to write, "The Ballad of the Green Berets."

Sadler recorded his now-famous song, "The Ballad of the Green Berets", a patriotic song, encouraged by writer Robin Moore, author of the novel The Green Berets, on the RCA Victor Records company label. The book had become a 1968 movie, The Green Berets, starring John Wayne, with "The Ballad of the Green Berets" arranged as a choral version by Ken Darby as the title song of the movie.

The song "The Ballad of the Green Berets" came out during early 1966 and became a fast-selling single, scoring #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five consecutive weeks from March 5 to April 2, 1966. It sold more than a million copies. He sang it for his television début for The Jimmy Dean Show. Sadler recorded an album of similarly themed songs which he titled Ballads of the Green Berets. It sold a million copies during the first five weeks of its release.



SSG Barry Allen Sadler passed away November 5, 1989.