One-hit wonder Barry Sadler

A really unusual recording artist was Barry Sadler, whose great claim to fame was his 1966 Vietnam-era hit Ballad of the Green Berets. The song was No. 1 for more than a month, and its popularity was extended via a movie having the same title and starring John Wayne.

High school dropout Sadler enlisted in the Air Force and later joined the Army, serving as a Staff Sergeant in Vietnam, where he was wounded near Pleiku. He recorded a few more songs, but none captured the public's imagination. Sadler wrote war-connected novels and later began a series of "Casca" books set in early Christianity and featuring a fictitious mercenary. Sadler was shot in mysterious circumstances in Guatemala City. Some reports indicate robbery as the motive, others claim he was involved in training the Nicaraguan Contras.