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"Ballad of the Green Berets"
#1 weeks: 5
weeks: 1966-03-05, 1966-03-12, 1966-03-19, 1966-03-26, 1966-04-02
genre: ballad, patriotic
artist: SSgt Barry Sadler
album: Ballads of the Green Berets
writers: Robin Moore, Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler
label:
lengths: 2:27

"The Ballad Of The Green Berets" is a patriotic song in the ballad style about the Green Berets, an elite special force in the U.S. Army. It is one of the very few songs of the 1960s to cast the military in a positive light and yet it became a major hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Charts for five weeks in 1966. It was also a multi-market smash, reaching #1 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart, and #2 on Billboard's Country survey.

The song was written by Robin Moore and Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler, while the latter was recuperating from a leg wound suffered as a medic in the Vietnam War. Moore also wrote a non-fiction book, The Green Berets, about the force.

The recording of the song was the number one hit in the United States for five weeks in 1966 and was the number twenty-one song of 1960s, despite the later unpopularity of the Vietnam War. Refer to United States Army Special Forces in popular culture

It has sold over nine million singles and albums. It was the top single of a year in which the British Invasion, led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, dominated the U.S. charts.

It is currently used as one of the four primary marching tunes of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.

The song is heard in a choral rendition by Ken Darby in the 1968 John Wayne film The Green Berets, which was based on Moore's book. The score of the movie was never released as an album until Film Score Monthlyreleased it in 2005. A film tie-in featuring artwork from the film and a cover version by Ennio Morricone was released in Europe, though the other tracks on the album were soundtracks from A Fistful of Dollarsand For a Few Dollars More.

The song appears in the films More American Graffitiand Canadian Bacon. It can be heard in the gun show scene from the 2002 film Showtime, and in the film Jesus' Son, in a scene that features a hitch-hiking Jack Black.

There are many cover versions of the song including in different languages rewritten to reference local units, these include