A traditional Basque-style beret (with headband folded in).

Military use of beret (Commandant Soutiras, Officer of the French Chasseurs alpins)

A beret ( /ˈbɛreɪ/^[1] BERR-ay or /bəˈreɪ/^[2] bə-RAY; French: [beˈʁɛ]) is a soft, round, flat-crowned hat, designated a "cap", usually of woven, hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, or wool felt,^[3] or acrylic fiber.

Beret like headwear has been worn across Europe since pre-Roman times. Mass production began in 19th century France, Spain and Italy, countries with which it remains associated. Berets are worn as part of the uniform of many military and police units worldwide, as well as by other organizations.^[4]

Etymology[link]

Beret (from béret in French). The French word is from the Béarnais Berret "sort of flat woollen cap, worn by the local peasants".^[5] It was first mentioned 1835 in French and then 19th century in English too.^[6] This word is related to English biretta "clerical square cap", borrowed itself from Spanish birrete of the same etymology.^[7][8] Most specialists think it is a diminutive form biretum of the Low Latin birrum, which means "sort of short cloak with a hood" ["cuculla brevis"],^{[9][10][11][12]} that is from Gaulish birros "short".^[13][14] This word is a close relative to Old Irish berr "short", Welsh byr, Breton berr "short", all thought to be from Proto-Celtic *birro-.^[15][16] The Greek word βίρρος is borrowed from Latin.^[17]

History[link]

Henry VIII wearing a beret of the period (1509)

Archaeology and art history indicate that headgear similar to the modern beret has been worn since the Bronze Age across northern Europe and as far south as ancient Crete and Italy, where it was worn by the Minoans, Romans and Etruscans. Such headgear has been popular among the nobility and artists across Europe throughout modern history.^[3]

The Basque style beret was the traditional headgear of Basque shepherds in the Pyrenees, a mountain range that divides southern France from northern Spain. The commercial production of Basque style berets began in the 17th century in the Oloron-Sainte-Marie area of southern France. Originally a local craft, beret-making became industrialized in the nineteenth century. The first factory, Beatex-Laulhere, claims production records dating back to 1810. By the 1920s, berets were associated with the working classes in a part of France and Spain and by 1928 more than 20 French factories and some Spanish and Italian factories produced millions of berets.^[3]

In Western fashion, men and women have worn the beret since the 1920s as sportswear and later as a fashion statement.

Military berets were first adopted adopted by the French Chasseurs Alpins in 1889. After seeing these during World War I, British General Hugh Elles proposed the beret for use by the newly-formed Royal Tank Regiment, which needed headgear that would stay on while climbing in and out of the small hatches of tanks. They were approved for use by King George V in 1924.^[18] The black RTR beret was made famous by Field Marshal Montgomery in World War II.^[3]

Wear[link]

The beret fits snugly around the head, and can be "shaped" in a variety of ways – in the Americas it is commonly worn pushed to one side. In Central and South America, local custom usually prescribes the manner of wearing the beret; there is no universal rule and older gentlemen usually wear it squared on the head, jutting forward. It can be worn by both men and women.

Military uniform berets feature a headband or sweatband attached to the wool, made either from leather, silk, or cotton ribbon, sometimes with a drawstring allowing the wearer to tighten the hat. The drawstrings are, according to custom, either tied and cut off/tucked in or else left to dangle. The beret is often adorned with a cap badge, either in cloth or metal. Some berets have a piece of buckram or other stiffener in the position where the badge is intended to be worn.

Berets are not usually lined, but many are partially lined with silk or satin. In military berets, the headband is worn on the outside; military berets often have external sweatbands of leather, pleather or ribbon. The traditional beret (also worn by selected military units, such as the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais or the French Chasseurs Alpins), usually has the "sweatband" folded inwardly. In such a case, these berets have only an additional inch or so of the same woolen material designed to be folded inwardly.

New beret styles, fully lined and made of "Polar fleece", have become popular. These are unique in that they are machine washable.

National traditions and variants[link]

Basque Country[link]

Olentzero, a Basque Christmas figure, wears a beret.

Berets came to be popularized across Europe and other parts of the world as typical Basque headgear, as reflected in their name in several languages (e.g. béret basque in French, Baskenmütze in German, Basco in Italian or Baskeri in Finnish). They are very popular and common in the Basque Country. The colors adopted for folk costumes varied by region, red in Gipuzkoa, white in Álava, blue in Biscay, but eventually the Basques settled on blue berets and the people of Navarre adopted red berets while the black beret became the common headgear of workers in France and Spain. ^[3]

A commemorative beret is the usual trophy in sport or bertso competitions, including Basque rural sports or the Basque portions of the Tour de France.

France[link]

The black beret was once considered the national cap of France in Anglo-Saxon countries and is part of the stereotypical image of the Onion Johnny. It is no longer as widely worn as it once was, but it remains a strong sign of local identity in the south west of France. When French people want to picture themselves as "the typical average Frenchman" in France or in a foreign country, they often use this stereotype from Anglo-Saxon countries. There are only two manufacturers left in France, Hoquy and Blancq-Olibet.

Spain[link]

In Spain, berets are known as boinas or chapelas (from the Basque, txapela; also the Basque chapo after the French chapeau). They were once common mens' headwear across the cooler north of the country, in regions such as Navarre, the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. The small stub in the centre of a beret is sometimes known by its Basque name, txortena meaning "stalk".^[19]

Scotland[link]

The traditional bonnet of the Kilwinning Archers of Scotland

There are several Scottish variants of the beret, notably the Scottish bonnet or Bluebonnet (originally bonaid in Gaelic), whose ribbon cockade and feathers identify the wearer’s clan and rank), and which is a symbol of Scottish patriotism. Other Scottish types include the tam-o'-shanter (named by Robert Burns after a character in one of his poems) and the striped Kilmarnock cap, both of which feature a large pompom in the centre.^[3]

South America[link]

In South America, both wool and cotton berets are commonly seen as headwear among Gauchos in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile, most of which are manufactured by Bonigor SA of Argentina and Fábrica Nacional de Sombreros of Uruguay. Though common enough among the general population, berets seem to be avoided by indigenous groups. Most likely the wearing of the beret, as in Spain, is largely dependent on the climate.

Uses[link]

As uniform headgear[link]

The beret's practicality has long made it an item of European military clothing. It has often become a part of the uniform of soldiers, both informally and formally; a practise that has, in recent times, been copied around the world (see Military beret and Uniform beret). Among a few well known historic examples are the Scottish soldiers, who wore the blue bonnet in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Volontaires Cantabres, a French force raised in the Basque country in the 1740s to the 1760s, who also wore a blue beret, and the Carlist rebels, with their red berets, in 1830s Spain.

In fashion and culture[link]

The beret is part of the long-standing stereotype of the intellectual, film director, artist, "hipsters", poet, bohemians and beatniks. In America and Britain, the middle of the twentieth century saw an explosion of berets in women's fashion. In the later part of the twentieth century, the beret was adopted by the Chinese both as a fashion statement and for its political undertones.

As a revolutionary symbol[link]

One of the most famous photographs of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, El Guerrillero Heroico, shows him wearing a black beret with a red star.

In the 1960s several activist groups adopted the black beret. These include the Black Panther Party of the United States, formed in 1966,^[20] the "Black Beret Cadre" (a similar Black Power organisation in Bermuda),^[21] the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the ETA guerrillas (who wore black berets over hoods in public appearances). In addition, the Brown Berets were a Chicano organisation formed in 1967. The Young Lords Party, a Latino revolutionary organization in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, also wore berets.

Rastafarians[link]

Rastafarian with beret

Adherents of the Rastafari movement often wear a very large knitted or crocheted black beret with red, gold, and green circles atop their dreadlocks. The style is often erroneously called a kufi, after the skullcap known as kufune. They consider the beret and dreadlocks to be symbols of the biblical covenant of God with his chosen people, the "black Israelites".^[3]

See also[link]

• Biretta
• Military berets by color: Black beret, blue beret, green beret, maroon beret, red beret, tan beret
• Mohair berets
• Tudor bonnet
• Caubeen
• Zucchetto

Footnotes[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Berets

External links[link]

• Vietnam US Special Forces Berets RallyPointMilitaria.com 2009
• Page at canadiansoldiers.com on berets in the Canadian military
• Beret Look a Keeper for One Trend Tester by Dionne Walker, Associated Press, January 22 2009
• History of USAF Security Police Beret
• Vive le Beret: The Slouchy Felt Headgear is Selling like Hot Croissants in France by Harriet Walker, The Independent, April 15 2009
• My Kingdom for a Crown
• Beret FAQ's

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

Barry Sadler
250px Sadler on the cover of the Ballad of the Green Berets LP.
Born	November 1, 1940 (1940-11) Carlsbad, New Mexico, United States
Died	November 5, 1989 (1989-11-06) (aged 49) Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	US Air Force US Army
Years of service	1957 - 1966
Rank	Staff Sergeant
Unit	Special Forces
Battles/wars	Vietnam War

Barry Sadler (November 1, 1940 – November 5, 1989) was an American soldier, author and musician. Sadler served as a Green Beret medic with the rank of Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Most of his work has a military theme, and he billed himself as SSG Barry Sadler (although his label credits read SSgt Barry Sadler).

Background[link]

Sadler was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the second son of John Sadler and Bebe Littlefield of Phoenix, Arizona. His parents were both professional gamblers, and the family moved often. His parents divorced when Sadler was very young, and his father died not long after of a rare form of nervous system cancer at the age 36. His mother took her sons with her as she worked at temporary jobs in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. According to Sadler's autobiography, "I'm a Lucky One," his father developed a successful plumbing and electrical business in Carlsbad, NM. He also owned several farms in the area. He describes his mother as managing restaurants and bars, and at times games in casinos.

Military service[link]

Enlistment[link]

Sadler dropped out of high school in Leadville, Colorado in the tenth grade. After a year of hitchhiking across the country, he enlisted at age 17 in the U.S. Air Force. He was trained as a radar technician and was stationed in Japan. At the end of his four year tour of duty, Sadler enlisted in the Army, seeking more excitement.

Wounded in action[link]

Following his airborne training, Sadler volunteered for the US Army's elite Special Forces and passed the difficult selections tests. Following lengthy training as a combat medic at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, he was sent to South Vietnam. In May 1965, while on a combat patrol in the Central Highlands southeast of Pleiku, he was severely wounded in the knee by a feces-covered punji stick. He was already taking an antibiotic for dysentery, and no ill effects from the punji stick were seen. He used a cotton swab and an adhesive bandage, then finished the patrol. However, he developed a serious infection in his leg, and was flown to Walter Reed Hospital in the United States. Sadler's doctors were forced to surgically enlarge the wound to drain it and to administer penicillin. While he was recuperating, he heard Senator Robert F. Kennedy dedicate the new JFK Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg. Sadler promised himself that if he successfully fought off the infection, he would give away the rights to his song "The Ballad of the Green Berets." He recovered completely and kept his promise.

The Ballad Of The Green Berets[link]

Sadler recorded his now-famous song, "The Ballad Of The Green Berets," a patriotic song in ballad style. The recording was encouraged by writer Robin Moore, author of the novel The Green Berets. The book became a 1968 movie, The Green Berets, starring John Wayne, with "The Ballad of the Green Berets" arranged in a choral version by Ken Darby as the title song of the film. Moore wrote an introduction to Sadler's autobiography, I'm a Lucky One, which he dictated to Tom Mahoney and which Macmillan published in 1967. "The Ballad of the Green Berets" was picked up by the RCA Victor Records label in early 1966 and became a fast-selling single, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five consecutive weeks from March 5 to April 2, 1966. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[1] The song was a big hit in many U.S. cities; it spent five weeks at No. 1 on the weekly Good Guys music survey at WMCA, the top pop music radio station in New York in 1966. He sang it for his television debut on The Jimmy Dean Show. Sadler recorded an album of similarly themed songs which he titled Ballads of the Green Berets. It sold a million copies in the first five weeks of its release.^[1]

Awards and decorations[link]

According to the ribbons and badges worn by Sadler in a televised performance of "The Ballad of the Green Berets," he received the following awards for his military service: Air Force Good Conduct Medal, Air Force Longevity Service Award, Purple Heart Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge, and possibly the South Vietnamese Parachutist Badge.^[2]

Later years[link]

Literary works[link]

Unable to score another major hit, although "The A-Team " was a Top 30 Billboard chart 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 Saint Longinus and The Wandering Jew), who stabbed Christ during the crucifixion, and is cursed to remain a soldier eternally till the Second Coming. The series of novels takes Casca through to the 20th century. Sadler himself wrote only the first few, with the remainder of the original 22 books being farmed out by the publishers to other writers and issued under his name. Subsequent books have been written by different authors.

• List Of Works In The Casca Novel Series

Lee Emerson Bellamy[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

On December 1, 1978 at around 11pm, Sadler killed country songwriter Lee Emerson Bellamy with one gunshot to the head. The shooting was the culmination of a month's long dispute the men had over Darlene Sharp, who was Bellamy's former girlfriend, and Sadler's girlfriend at the time. Bellamy was not pleased by her involvement with Sadler. Witnesses gave testimony that prior to the shooting, Bellamy made many harassing phone calls to Sadler, and numerous threats on his life.

On the night in question, Bellamy made several harassing phone calls, including one to the Natchez Trace Restaurant, where Sadler and Sharp were having dinner and drinks with several friends. That led to Sadler asking the bartender to call the police, who never responded. Bellamy later followed the group to Sharp's residence and knocked on the door. Sadler exited a side door to try to catch him in the act, and upon seeing Sadler, Bellamy proceeded to aggressively approach him. It was at this point, Sadler testified, that he saw a flash of metal. Thinking this was a gun, he discharged his weapon once. Bellamy was struck in the head and died the following morning. It was later shown that Bellamy was unarmed, and that the flash of metal was likely from his car keys. After the shooting, according to court records on the case, Sadler then placed a handgun into Bellamy's van. This may have been to strengthen his case for self defense, which initially, is what Sadler claimed. This was later changed to a plea of guilty.

On June 1, 1979 Sadler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Lee Emerson Bellamy, and sentenced to 4–5 years in prison. Upon appeal, due to the circumstances of the case, his sentence was reduced to the 21 days already served in a Tennessee workhouse. Sadler was later sued for wrongful death by Bellamy's estate, and was ordered to pay restitution of around $10,000.

Death[link]

Sadler moved to Guatemala City in the mid 1980s and often hung out at a bar/restaurant called La Europa (also known as Freddie's Bar for the German proprietor). He continued to publish the Casca books (mostly using various ghostwriters), produced a self-defense video (which was never released) and even helped with vaccination programs in rural villages.

It was in Guatemala City that he was shot in the head one night in a taxi. He was airlifted to the U.S. by friends from Soldier Of Fortune Magazine, where he was hospitalized and remained in a coma for several months. He died little more than a year later in the Alvin C. York Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The circumstances involving his shooting remain a mystery. It has been variously claimed that he committed suicide, that he shot himself accidentally while showing off to a female companion, and that he was assassinated for allegedly training and arming the Contras. The most common story identifies the incident as a robbery. According to his companion at the time, he had been training Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries and had received death threats.

Popular culture[link]

In Mitchell Freedman's alternative history novel A Disturbance of Fate (ISBN 1931643229), Barry Sadler becomes president in 1984 after serving two terms as governor of Arizona. In Freedman's scenario, Sadler carries out the agenda pursued by Ronald Reagan of promoting pro-business policies and personnel into federal posts. His use of the military promotes a second Civil War in 1986 (which Freedman's characters refer to as "the Great Struggle") which leads to the defeat of the forces under President Sadler's control. Sadler himself is captured in the novel after a failed suicide attempt and dies in 1991 of a heart attack while in solitary confinement.

The second verse of the Simon and Garfunkel song "A Simple Desultory Philippic" contains the line, "I've been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered."

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Official Casca website
• Barry Sadler at the Internet Movie Database
• Barry Sadler at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Barry Sadler at Allmusic
• Obituary
• Findagrave

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)

Martin Galway (born 3 January 1966, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is one of the best known composers of music for the Commodore 64 sound chip, the SID soundchip, and for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. His works include Rambo: First Blood Part II, Comic Bakery and Wizball's scores, as well as the music used in the loader for the C64 version of Arkanoid.

Biography[link]

In 1983, Martin Galway was a 17-year-old student writing games and music for the BBC Micro, along with his friends at Parrs Wood High School in Manchester, England. Parrs Wood's original Computer Studies teacher, Peter Davidson, had already left his job at the school to work at Database Publications in Stockport - publishers of The Micro User magazine. Database Publications had started a software arm, Optima Software, that would advertise its games in the magazine for no charge. They needed some programmers to create the software and Davidson contacted his former pupils. Galway (who had, at the time, only one year of computer experience) was recruited, along with others including Kevin Edwards (who now works at Traveller's Tales). With no tools except the BBC Micro and its BASIC+assembler, Galway whistled the tunes to himself and typed the notes in one by one, providing the music for Edwards's and Optima Software's first game - Atomic Protector (an unlicensed Pac-Man clone. Galway was paid £50 for each of the six weeks of the job (the length of the school holidays).

Continuing to create music and sound-effects for his friends' games into the following year, Galway realised that Eyes (another Pac-Man rip-off) by school friend Paul Proctor could be worth "proper" money, and he picked up a copy of Personal Computer News to look for a publisher. By March 1984, that magazine's back cover was regularly advertising Ocean Software in Manchester, so they were spotted first; Galway approached them as Proctor's agent. The game was liked, and after a meeting with David Ward, Ocean paid £300 for it. Eyes was never published. Keen to offer his skills as a musician to David Collier, Ocean's development manager, Galway brought with him some BBC Micro disks to the office of Richard Kay, who was their in-house BBC programmer (later to start Software Creations). After this demonstration, Ocean saw Galway as a potential replacement for their current music supplier, who lived in Portsmouth, which was a logistical challenge. Wanting to secure someone local, they let Galway borrow a complete Commodore 64 assembly language development system, and he started analysing the system and composing right away.

During the 1980s, Galway made music for many of the popular Commodore 64 games, and became one of the most famous SID artists. Galway is best known for his soaring, anthemic compositions, for making heavy use of the SID chip's ring modulation feature, and for compositions which made unconventional changes to SID register settings while notes were playing (producing his trademark echoey sound). Perhaps his most famous song is the title-piece for Comic Bakery, a sweeping 3-voice tune. This is also one of the most ripped C64 songs, as it was featured in a number of intros (what crackers used to put before a pirated game to brag) and on music discs^{[citation needed]}. A cover of the Comic Bakery tune was also used for the first level of the game Jurassic Park, released by Ocean Software for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993. Another song that many Commodore 64 users remember is his adaptation of the Rambo II theme used in the game.

Galway also made music for one of Origin Systems' first adventure/roleplaying games, Times of Lore, with several tunes that were intended to suit the medieval setting. As he was also a programmer, he wrote an algorithm that randomised the chords that the guitar voice plays, making for a very long and varying piece.

He was also the first musician to get published with sampled sounds on the Commodore, with the theme for the Arkanoid conversion. When asked about how he did it, he answered:

"I figured out how samples were played by hacking into someone else's code ... OK, I admit it ... It was a drum synthesizer package called Digidrums, actually, so you could still say I was the first to include samples in a piece of music. [...] Never would I claim to have invented that technique, I just got it published first. In fact, I couldn't really figure out where they got the sample data, just that they were wiggling the volume register, so I tried to make up my own drum sample sounds in realtime - which is the flatulence stuff that shipped in Arkanoid. [...] After the project was in the shops I gained access to some real drum samples, and I slid those into my own custom version of the tune. The one that's in the shops is kind of a collage of farts & burps, don't you think? [...] Later I was able to acquire some proper drum samples and by Game Over it got quite sophisticated."

Galway has said that he will never remake his songs, as they were made for the SID chip and would sound wrong on real instruments. However, he says that he could possibly start making music for real instruments. His original SID music can be found from The High Voltage SID Collection.

As of June 2007^[update], Martin Galway was completing his 25th year in the games business, working as operations/production manager and audio director of Certain Affinity, an Austin, Texas based software company.

Galway is the nephew of famed flautist Sir James Galway.

Video game music[link]

References[link]

1. ^ "Lost and found: BBC Cookie". stairwaytohell.com. The BBC and Electron Games Archive. http://www.stairwaytohell.com/lostandfound/homepage.html. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 

• High Voltage SID Collection
• Martin Galway in the STIL
• The SOASC= projects Mp3 recordings from Martin Galway's music

External links[link]

• Artist profile at OverClocked ReMix
• Martin Galway discography at MusicBrainz
• Martin Galway's Music at CVGM
• Information about Martin Galway on Certain Affinity web page
• Legends of the C64 article on Martin Galway
• Remix64 Interview Sánchez, Claudio (10 July 2003)
• Remix64 Interview Carr, Neil (28 March 2001)