United States Army Special Forces in popular culture

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United States Army Special Forces in popular culture often begins with a United States Army Special Forces trooper emphatically telling you that the Green Beret is a hat and not the man who wears it. Nevertheless, for a time in the 1960s the Green Beret and the men who wore them became a national fad encompassing a wide variety of pop culture.

Contents 1 Soldiers of the New Frontier 2 Saturation 3 Fade out 4 References

[edit] Soldiers of the New Frontier

Though the U.S. Army Special Forces were created with a low profile in 1952 and their famous headgear wasn't officially authorized, things changed dramatically with President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy wanted to challenge Communist influence and wars of liberation in the recently decolonized Third World and bolster pro-American regimes with the Pentagon's own Special Forces and counter guerrilla fighters.

On October 12, 1961 President Kennedy visited the U.S. Special Warfare Center where his aide Major General Chester V. Clifton, a friend of the Center's commander Brigadier General William P. Yarborough informed Yarborough that the President was keen on the Special Forces, but would not visit their base unless they were wearing their green berets. The army which had previously forbidden the green beret said the troops could wear them, lest JFK not visit.^[1] The Special Forces troops put on a show displaying their capabilities that they would do on a frequent basis in the years ahead, jokingly referring to it as "Disneyland". President Kennedy's visit was topped off by a pilot from the Bell Aircraft corporation dressed in army fatigues flying with a Bell rocket belt to the President and saluting.

President Kennedy expressed his approval of the green beret and the U.S. Army authorized it at last. In 1962, President Kennedy called the green beret "a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom". Special Forces troopers wearing their green beret with their Army Green dress uniforms formed part of President Kennedy's funeral procession. A green beret was photographed on top of President Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

The first army pilot to receive the Green Beret was the now famous author Robert Skimin.^[2]

The Special Forces appeared in some films. The 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa provided a number of troopers to act as extras in Samuel Fuller's Merrill's Marauders in 1961 and received a credit at the film's beginning. On television in the United States, a March 1962 episode of Surfside 6 was titled "The Green Beret" and featured Special Forces training. Henry Fonda appeared in and narrated a 1962 "Special Forces" episode of The Big Picture series of US Army-produced films that found their way onto American television. A Green Beret appeared in the 1963 "In Praise of Pip" episode of The Twilight Zone though CBS was requested by the US Army not to mention the name of the country the Southeast Asia segment took place in. A Green Beret made his first appearance in a Hollywood film with Andrew Duggan as a Special Forces man loyal to the President in Seven Days in May (1963) that also showed the American filmgoer their first glimpse of an M16 rifle.

Mattel toys came out with "Guerrilla Fighter" playsets in 1962 containing a commando green beret with an interesting tin "Guerrilla Fighter" badge depicting the crossed arrows insignia of the Special Forces, (formerly worn by the 1st Special Service Force, and before that the U.S. Army Indian Scouts) and a jungle knife in front of a parachute. The set also contained the Mattel Dick Tracy automatic cap firing "tommy gun" or "Scattergun" (the Dick Tracy cap firing no longer water firing riot shotgun) toy weapons, both now in military camouflage plastic, a military camouflaged poncho, and in some sets, a rubber Ka-Bar knife and a tripwire booby trap. Mattel later came out with a toy "M-16 Marauder" in 1966 that appeared in The Green Berets film when John Wayne smashed one against a tree in rage.

The public was fascinated with this new type of soldier of the New Frontier but the army was reluctant to give access to journalists to many of the Special Forces' often top secret missions. One writer who wanted more than a "Disneyland" show was Robin Moore who used his connections with his former Harvard University classmate Robert F. Kennedy to do a book on the Special Forces. The US Army reluctantly agreed, but only on the condition that Moore, then 38 years old undertake Airborne and Special Forces training before he would be allowed to visit them in South Vietnam.

[edit] Saturation

Moore successfully completed the course and lived alongside the Special Forces men and their South Vietnamese, Montagnard and Nung mercenary allies. Moore's book The Green Berets was published in 1965 but because he had mentioned several things about American presence in North Vietnam and Cambodia, he published the book as fiction. The US Army was upset with Moore's book but the public wasn't and it became a bestseller, especially in paperback in 1966.

At the time of Moore's book and increasing American involvement in the Vietnam War, a Special Forces Staff Sergeant named Barry Sadler wrote a song with Moore and recorded it with the title "Ballad of the Green Berets". It became the number one single record in the US in 1966. In addition to the single, Sadler released an album Ballads of the Green Berets with Sadler's photograph of him in a green beret appearing on the single, the LP, and on the paperback cover of Moore's The Green Berets. Sadler later had a lesser hit with a song called "The A-Team" and released two more LPs and an autobiography I'm A Lucky One.

"Ballad of the Green Berets" had many cover versions ranging from Ennio Morricone and Duane Eddy to "Drugstore records" on labels such as Diplomat and Wyncote records. Hanna-Barbera Records released a children's LP The Story of the Green Beret available to members of the G.I. Joe club. The album was a tie-in with the release of the G.I. Joe Green Beret "action figure" (doll) that had appeared in 1966. The exciting record had an album cover of Special Forces in action and a picture of the Medal of Honor. The record started off with a cover version of "Ballad of the Green Berets" but was a spoken account with sound effects of a Colonel taking two small boys to visit Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to learn about the training and capabilities of The Green Berets. The album then featured an exciting account of the Battle of Nam Dong where Captain Roger Donlon won the first Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.

A less successful song was Nancy Ames' "He Wore The Green Beret" with a flip side of "War is a Card Game". Dickie Goodman pitted the two fads of 1966 against each other in Batman and His Grandmother where the Caped Crusader went up against the Green Beret.

Robin Moore also wrote a 1965 Tales of the Green Beret newspaper comic strip with artwork by Sgt. Rock (comics) Joe Kubert that was also published in paperback. It later became a Dell Publishing American comic book in 1967 replacing their earlier Jungle War Stories and Guerrilla War comics. When DC Comics's Larry Rock (brother of the Sergeant), the replacement in Our Fighting Forces for the Marines Gunner and Sarge and their dog Pooch proved unpopular, DC replaced him with a Green Beret named Captain Hunter in 1966. Captain Hunter's adventures featured him hunting for his twin brother, a pilot shot down and captured by the Viet Cong. Other war comics put in their own Green Beret characters, such as Lightning Comics' Todd Holton-Super Green Beret (1967) [1].

Children of all ages could also enjoy Philadelphia Gum "Men of the Green Beret" trading cards of photographs of the Special Forces in action with a stick of bubble gum. The artwork on the box was by famed artist Norm Saunders of Mars Attacks fame. Aurora Models came out with a model of a Green Beret.

With all the interest in the men of the Green Beret, a film was a long time in coming. Columbia Pictures had purchased film rights on Moore's book before it even was published, using the title for a screenplay on the training of a Special Forces team and their deployment in Southeast Asia but dropped the idea as the U.S. Army set many conditions on the film and public dissatisfaction grew with the Vietnam War. Producer David L. Wolper then purchased the rights to The Green Berets but dropped the idea for the same reasons as Columbia Pictures though he later produced The Devil's Brigade (film) (1968) that used Utah based National Guard Special Forces film extras wearing attractive but imaginary red berets.

It remained for John Wayne to purchase the rights and seek President Lyndon Johnson's help in getting Pentagon assistance to film Moore's book. The Army set strict conditions, forbidding Moore to work on or be associated with the film, though the film trailer has the caption "TOLD TOUGH-LIKE THE BOOK". Despite Wayne's undoubted box office prestige and the public interest in The Green Berets, Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures would not film it. Wayne's preferred film composer Elmer Bernstein also refused to work on it. Wayne used his own Batjac Productions money to make the film that Warner Bros. released to financial success but some public protest.

The film begins with a choral version of "Ballad of the Green Berets" over Wayne Fitzgerald's title design that segues into an A-Team of Special Forces putting on a "Disneyland" show for journalists including a skeptical David Janssen. Janssen wangles a trip to the Vietnam War out of Colonel John Wayne and eventually takes part in a large-scale battle based on the Battle of Nam Dong. Janssen tells Wayne "If I write what I feel I'll be out of a job". Wayne tells Janssen he'll always have one with them.

The last third of the film displays Green Beret expertise in a commando mission to abduct a North Vietnamese General who has been seduced by the sister in law of an ARVN Special Forces Colonel Jack Soo counterpart of Wayne. The climax of the film is a superb demonstration of combatives by former Tarzan Mike Henry killing a horde of Viet Cong who attack him, even impaling one on a low hanging tree branch. The martial arts inspired many film producers.

Tom Laughlin made a highly profitable American International Pictures film called The Born Losers (1967) featuring a half American Indian former Green Beret Vietnam War veteran named Billy Jack using his martial arts expertise on a motorcycle gang. A 1971 American International Pictures film Chrome and Hot Leather had Special Forces men Tony Young, Peter Brown, and Marvin Gaye using their training and Vietnam War experience to revenge Young's girlfriend's murder by William Smith's motorcycle gang. The film poster displayed a uniformed Green Beret using a biker as a sub-human punching bag with the unforgettable tagline "DON'T MUCK AROUND WITH A GREEN BERET'S MAMA! HE'LL TAKE HIS CHOPPER AND RAM IT DOWN YOUR THROAT!"

John James Rambo played by Sylvester Stallone was a Green Beret.

[edit] Fade out

As many of the public grew weary of the Green Berets, so did some in the American Regular Army. There were feelings that the 1969 Colonel Robert Rheault "Green Beret Murder Case" (where the Colonel and seven of his men were put on trial for allegedly assassinating an enemy spy) was played up as a discrediting tactic against the Special Forces.^[3]

[edit] References

• Halberstadt, Hans The Green Berets: Unconventional Warriors The Cult of the Green Beret Presidio Press (1988)
• Stein, Jeff A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story that Changed the Course of the Vietnam War St Martins Mass Market Paper (1993)