Today is my 29th wedding anniversary, so I was hoping a romantic song topped the Hot 100 the week of March 8, 1966. Alas, it was not to be.

Instead, we have ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ by Staff sergeant Barry Sadler. This simple march was a massive Vietnam War-era hit that wasn’t critical of the campaign, like most popular music of the time, but instead celebrated the men who fought in it.

Sadler was a Green Beret medic who spent five months in Vietnam before being wounded in action. He recorded this song later that year, co-writing the lyrics with novelist Robin Moore (whose book The Green Berets was made into a 1968 John Wayne movie that featured this song).

‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ spent five weeks at #1 and was later named by Billboard as the top song of 1966.

Sadler survived the war but died 20 years later at just 49 after being shot in the head during a robbery in Guatemala City.

Happy Anniversary!