Anti-Vietnam war movement is just an event that happened in the United States long history. However, when looking at the war, we must recognize several other aspects that developed during the moment when the war was in progress. Such aspect includes the Anti-Vietnam music that had a cultural as well as historical importance (Digitalhistory.uh.edu, 2015). The war and the music were intertwined and the emotions from the battlefield were carried home through music. Music at this time was art, literature, political rhetoric among others. This essay discusses one of the Anti-Vietnam War music ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’.
The song was composed by one of the Special Forces soldiers by the name of Barry Sadler. The song commemorated the fighting soldiers of the U.S. Special Forces in the Vietnam War. The song attracted massive cultural attention and within weeks of its production, it had sold millions of copies all around America. Ballad of the Green Berets, however, was not just music. It involved some politics as well, and it was followed by a paperback book, additional music, and a Hollywood film. The politics came into the picture due to the involvement of the two most powerful politicians in John F. Kennedy and Robert f. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy, the then president, was the one who had given the Special Forces their command
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It represented the views and opinions of a young generation and the conservatism values of the older generation, the ‘silent majority.’ The war had received mixed emotions in the United States; there were people who were for the war and others called for the cessation of the war and the recalling of the American fighting troops from the Vietnam. The song just like other Anti-Vietnam songs during this period captured the emotions and of people who were for and against the war and portrayed the mood across the country amid dramatic political and social change (Digitalhistory.uh.edu,