Ballad of the Green Beret

The Life and Wars of Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler from the Vietnam War and Pop Stardom to Murder and an Unsolved, Violent Death

De: Marc Leepson

Narrado por: David de Vries

The top Billboard Hot 100 single of 1966 wasn't The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" or the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" - it was "The Ballad of the Green Berets", a hyper-patriotic tribute to the men of the Special Forces by Vietnam veteran, US Army Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler. But Sadler's clean-cut, all-American image hid a darker side, a Hunter Thompson-esque life of booze, girls, and guns. Unable to score another hit song, he wrote a string of popular pulp fiction paperbacks that made "Rambo look like a stroll through Disneyland." He killed a lover's ex-boyfriend in Tennessee. Settling in Central America, Sadler ran guns, allegedly trained guerrillas, provided medical care to residents, and caroused at his villa.

In 1988 he was shot in the head in Guatemala and died a year later. This life-and-times biography of an American pop culture phenomenon recounts the sensational details of Sadler's life vividly but soberly, setting his meteoric rise and tragic fall against the big picture of American society and culture during and after the Vietnam War.

©2017 Marc Leepson (P)2017 Tantor

Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was a great man.

Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was a great man. He was a man of many talents, a great singer, and a true Patriot.

Interesting

I was aware of his singing the Ballad of the Green Berets, but I had no idea his life story was so chaotic. His death was so disappointing and sad!
The book was okay, but there was a ton of fluff through out the whole book. A lot of detail that sort of drug down the book, making it a slow listen at times.
Overall it was interesting.