<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (1966) </Td> <Td> "The' A' Team" (1966) </Td> </Tr> <P> "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 few popular songs of the Vietnam War years to cast the military in a positive light and in 1966 became a major hit, reaching No. 1 for five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and four weeks on Cashbox . Ultimately, the song was named Billboard's #10 single for the year 1966 . It was also a crossover smash, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart and No. 2 on Billboard's Country survey . </P> <P> The song was written by then Staff Sgt . Barry Sadler, beginning when he was training to be a Special Forces medic . The author Robin Moore, who wrote the book, The Green Berets, helped Sadler write the lyrics and get a recording contract with RCA Records . </P> <P> The lyrics were written, in part, in honor of Green Beret U.S. Army Specialist 5 James Gabriel, Jr., the first native Hawaiian to die in Vietnam, who was killed by Viet Cong gunfire while on a training mission with the South Vietnamese Army on April 8, 1962 . One verse mentioned Gabriel by name, but it was not used in the recorded version . </P>

Who wrote the song ballad of the green berets