RIP Robin Moore

[silverscreenselect]

I just heard about this one but it didn't make the local paper earlier this week and wasn't posted here.

Author Robin Moore died Tuesday. He was best known for The Green Berets, a huge best seller in the Vietnam war, which led to an even more popular song (which he co-wrote) and one of John Wayne's most popular films. Moore himself was not a Green Beret but a journalist who spent a lot of time in Vietnam alongside actual Green Berets. The book detailed the various combat and behind-enemy-lines missions of the Berets. Though non-fiction, it used fictitious names and had more of the style of an action thriller than a serious work of journalism, which led to its success.

Moore also wrote The French Connection, about the largest heroin bust in the country until that time, which was made into an Oscar winning film, and The Happy Hooker, about notorious madame Xaviera Hollander.

Age 82.

I've always liked the film version of The Green Berets. It's right wing politics are obvious but if you can overlook that, and it's fairly easy, it's a very well crafted, exciting action film. John Wayne never got much credit as a director because he let his politics show through, but he knew how to craft action scenes in an era in which there was not CGI and limited effects work available.

[VAdame]

Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men who jump and die
Men who mean just what they say
The brave men of the Green Beret

Silver wings upon their chest
These are men, America's best
One hundred men we'll test today
But only three win the Green Beret

Trained to live, off nature's land
Trained in combat, hand to hand
Men who fight by night and day
Courage deep, from the Green Beret

Silver wings upon their chest
These are men, America's best
One hundred men we'll test today
But only three win the Green Beret

Back at home a young wife waits
Her Green Beret has met his fate
He has died for those oppressed
Leaving her this last request

Put silver wings on my son's chest
Make him one of America's best
He'll be a man they'll test one day
Have him win the Green Beret


[/SSgt Barry Sadler]