Barry Sadler

Barry Sadler (November 1, 1940 – September 8, 1989) was an American author and musician. Sadler served as a Green Beret medic and Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Most of his works have military themes, and he billed himself under his military rank of Staff Sergeant as SSgt Barry Sadler. Sadler was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the second son of John Sadler and Bebe Littlefield of Phoenix, Arizona. Sadler's parents divorced shortly afterward, with his father dying of a rare form of nervous system cancer at age 36. Littlefield took Sadler's older brother, Robert, to various places in the Southwest, working temporary jobs in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Unable to score another major hit, although "The A-Team" was a top-30 Billboard charted single in 1966, Sadler took to writing books. He chose to write about soldiers, but his series of novels took a turn far different from his music. His "Casca" series centers on the title character, Casca Rufio Longinius (a sort of combination of Longinus and The Wandering Jew), who stabbed Christ during the crucifixion, and is cursed to forever remain a soldier until the Second Coming. The series of 25 novels takes Casca through to the 20th century. Sadler himself wrote only the first few, with the remainder of the first 22 being farmed out by the publishers to other writers and issued under his name. Subsequent books have been written by different authors (see www.casca.net). On Casca: Casca Rufio Longinius, also known as Casca Longinus, or simply Casca: The Eternal Mercenary, is a character in a series of military historical novels, written by Barry Sadler called Casca: (the title after the semicolon was indicative of the particular adventure contained in that novel). He is a combination of two characters from Christian folklore, Longinus and the Wandering Jew, an immortal soldier. The original author, Barry Sadler, was a decorated war hero, who recorded "The Ballad of the Green Berets" in 1966 - earning him a gold record for the single, and another for the album.