I read Robin Moore's book The Green Berets when I was a kid. It was one of the few books I had purchased from the Weekly Reader Book Club when I was in elementary school. This song, The Ballad of The Green Berets of Sgt. Barry Sadler was a very popular song that came out not long after the book.
John Wayne, in 1968, followed with a movie called The Green Berets. The movie wasn't that good and the Vietnam War was at the height of U.S. involvement. Vietnam was also becoming unpopular "conflict". That didn't matter to The Duke. Wayne had turned down the Major Reisman role (Lee Marvin got) in THE DIRTY DOZEN in order to star in and co-produce THE GREEN BERETS.
I believe Brook and I went to see this together at The Pitman, in downtown Gadsden.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Ballad of the Green Beret
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4 comments:
soldiers....
no political views to interject into what they do.
They serve.
They go where they are commanded to go and they do what they are commanded to do.
It's hard for civilian population to wrap their brains around the calling of a soldier.
They (civilians)try to force military to act under a code of whimsical wishes. That the world could get along. That if we really tried, all we needed to do was sit down with our enemies and talk. We could work out our problems.
The soldier knows better.
He knows that our enemies only want to see us destroyed as a nation. Our enemy will use negotiation and diplomacy as a tool to bring about our destruction. While we walk around with our heads in the clouds under the Neville Chamberlain anointing of "peace in our time".
God help us all....
God bless us for the military....
mb
thanks Michael
I must have worn that book out, I read it so many times . . .
and you are right -- the movie is one of the only films by John Wayne I don't like.
On another military note -- if you haven't read Ambroses historical book "D-Day", you need to do so. I working my way through it, and keep thinking about your series of posts about your uncle and the LSTs. The personal accounts in this book are amazing, and cause me to do something I didn't think possible -- to hold those who have serve (and continue to serve) our country through military service in a higher regard.
Thanks for the memory, David.
The book you gave me many years back, GUNS UP by Johnnie M. Clark is the best personal account book I've ever read on the Vietnam War.
I recently picked up Ernie Pyle's BRAVE MEN. A chapter is devoted to his experience aboard an LST. He was in the same campaign that my uncle was in and wonder if perhaps Pyle was in the same flotilla. Who knows.
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