Since their creation in 1952, the U.S. Army Special Forces (including the "Green Berets") have appeared in a wide variety of popular culture referents. After a decline in popularity during the 1970s — coinciding with the American public's backlash against the Vietnam War — the Green Berets notably gripped the popular imagination with the Rambo film franchise in 1982. They continued to appear in popular culture, in particular as a dramatic device in various types of fictions.

Background Although the U.S. Army Special Forces were created with a low profile in 1952, and the green beret was not officially authorized, things changed with President John F. Kennedy. He wanted to challenge Communist influence and wars of liberation in the recently decolonized Third World, and bolster pro-American regimes with the U.S. Army's own special forces and counter-guerrilla fighters.

On 12 October 1961, Kennedy visited the U.S. Special Warfare Center, where his aide, Major General Chester V. Clifton (and friend of the SWC Commander, BG William P. Yarborough) informed Yarborough that the President was keen on the Special Forces — but would not visit the SF base unless they were wearing their green berets. The Army, having previously forbidden the green beret, allowed the soldiers to wear them, lest JFK not visit.Halberstadt, Hans, The Green Berets: Unconventional Warriors, Presidio Press, (1988),

In literature In the 1960s, the public was fascinated with the type of soldier of the New Frontier,Rick Worland, Searching for New Frontiers: Hollywood Films in the 1960s, John Wiley & Sons (2018), passim and the Army reluctantly gave journalists' access to many of Special Forces often top secret missions. One writer was Robin Moore, who used his connections with Harvard University classmate Robert F. Kennedy to write a book about the Special Forces. The U.S. Army agreed on the condition that Moore (then 38 years old) complete the Basic Airborne Course and SF training before being allowed to visit the Special Forces in South Vietnam.

Robin Moore successfully completed the courses and was allowed to live with the soldiers in Special Forces and their South Vietnamese, Montagnard, and Nung allies.https://historynet.com/how-the-green-berets-became-famous/ His book, The Green Berets, was published in 1965, but, because he mentions the American presence in North Vietnam and Cambodia, he published The Green Berets as a novel. The U.S. Army was upset by the book; the reading public was not and it became a best selling book, especially its paperback edition in 1966. Robin Moore also wrote a 1965 Tales of the Green Beret newspaper comic strip with artwork by Sgt. Rock 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).

List of books portraying US Army Special Forces 2009: Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, by Doug Stanton; adapted into the 2018 film, 12 Strong.

List of comics The father of the Modern Age Batwoman, Colonel Jacob Kane, is a Green Beret, specifically from the 3rd Special Forces Group.Detective Comics #858 (December 2009) After Kate Kane is discharged from West Point under Don't Ask Don't Tell, a chance encounter with Batman inspires her to take up the role of a masked vigilante in Gotham City. Jacob Kane uses his connections within the special operations community to have his daughter trained around the globe, after which she takes up the Batwoman mantle. Notably, prior to becoming a vigilante, Kate gets a tattoo of the Green Beret sleeve insignia on her shoulder in memory of her mother Gabrielle, who had a similar tattoo.Detective Comics #859 (January 2010)

Songs At the time of Moore's book and the increasing U.S. Military involvement in the Vietnam War, Special Forces Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler wrote a song with Robin Moore and recorded it under the title "The Ballad of the Green Berets", which became the number-one single of 1966 in the U.S.https://www.mensjournal.com/news/60-years-ago-ballad-green-berets-1966-controversial-no-1-hit 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. SSgt. Sadler later recorded an additional, but lesser, song "The A-Team" and released two more long-playing albums, then wrote his autobiography, I'm a Lucky One.

"The 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 that had appeared in 1966. The 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 "The Ballad of the Green Berets" but was a spoken account with sound effects of Colonel Pat Lawrence (Mike Road) taking two small boys (Andy and George) 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 received 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 & His Grandmother where the Caped Crusader went up against the Green Beret.

In film The first Special Forces Group on Okinawa provided a number of troopers to act as extras in director Samuel Fuller's Merrill's Marauders (1961) and were credited at film's start. On American television, a March 1962 episode of Surfside 6 titled "The Green Beret" featured SF training. Henry Fonda appeared in, and narrated, a 1962 "Special Forces" episode of The Big Picture series of U.S. Army-produced films that found their way to American television. In 1963, a Green Beret appeared in the episode "In Praise of Pip" of The Twilight Zone though the U.S. Army told the CBS television network to not name the Southeast Asian country where the story occurred. The Green Beret's first Hollywood appearance is in the futuristic thriller film Seven Days in May (1963) wherein Andrew Duggan is a Special Forces officer loyal to the U.S. president, not the traitorous JCS Chief Burt Lancaster; the film also gave the American filmgoer a first glimpse of the M16 rifle. With all the interest in the Green Berets, a film version seemed a long time in coming. Columbia Pictures had bought the film rights to Robin Moore's book before publication, using the title, The Green Berets, for a screenplay about the training of an SF Team and their deployment in Southeast Asia, but dropped the idea, because of the U.S. Army's many conditions and the American public's dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War. Producer David L. Wolper then bought the rights to The Green Berets and dropped the idea for reasons like Columbia Pictures. A screenplay was written by George Goodman who had served with the Special Forces in the 1950s as a military intelligence officer and had written a 1961 article about the Special Forces called The Unconventional Warriors in Esquire Magazine. Columbia sent Goodman to South Vietnam to research the screenplay. Wolper later produced The Devil's Brigade (1968) with Utah-based National Guard SF soldiers as extras, wearing attractive, but imaginary red berets. Thus, it fell to John Wayne to buy the rights and ask President Lyndon Johnson's help in obtaining the assistance and cooperation of the Pentagon in filming the book. The Army set strict conditions, forbidding Moore to work on or be associated with the film, but considerably facilitated the production of the filmhttps://nofilmschool.com/john-wayne-quote-green-berets though the film trailer has the caption "TOLD TOUGH - LIKE THE BOOK". Despite Wayne's box office prestige and public interest in The Green Berets, the film was rejected by Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Wayne used his Batjac Productions money to make the film, which Warner Bros. profitably released to some public protest. Wayne's version of Moore's The Green Berets begins with a choral version of "The Ballad of the Green Berets" heard behind Wayne Fitzgerald's titles that segue to an SF A-Team putting on a "Disneyland" show for journalists, including skeptical David Janssen. From SF Colonel John Wayne, reporter Janssen wangles a trip to the Vietnam War, and, eventually, participates in a large-scale battle, based on the Battle of Nam Dong. In the end, 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 film's critical reception was very diverse even at the time, Roger Ebert, for example, finding that it was "offensive not only to those who oppose American policy but even to those who support it".https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-green-berets-1968 Disenchantment As the public wearied of the Green Berets, so did the American Regular Army. The 1969 "Green Beret Murder Case" in which Colonel Robert B. Rheault and several of his men were tried for assassinating a Communist spy was used as a discrediting tactic against the Special Forces.Stein, Jeff, A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War, St Martins Mass Market Paper, (1993) The case also contributed to the plot of the movie Apocalypse Now in which a Green Beret Colonel accused of the same offence has gone rogue.

Rambo In 1972, author David Morrell published First Blood, a novel that features a former member of the Army Special Forces named John Rambo. The novel focuses on the struggle Rambo faces when he attempts to return to civilian life following the end of his tour of duty in Vietnam, and he eventually turns to violence. In 1982, a film adaptation of the novel was released, starring Sylvester Stallone. The film altered many aspects of the novel, including excising the self-loathing characteristics the protagonist possesses in the novel. The film was a box office success, and spawned a media franchise. List of films In 1967, Tom Laughlin made an American International Pictures film called The Born Losers featuring Billy Jack, a half-Native American former Green Beret Vietnam War veteranhttps://thevintagent.com/2021/05/16/the-vintagent-classics-born-losers/ using his martial arts on a motorcycle gang. In the 1968 film, The Green Berets, John Wayne portrays Mike Kirby, a Colonel with the 5th Special Forces Group during the Vietnam War. In 1971, in Billy Jack, the main protagonist Tom Laughlin is a "half-breed" American Navajo, a Green Beret Vietnam War veteran, and a hapkido master. The same year Chrome and Hot Leather portrays former Green Beret teaming up with men from his unit to take revenge on the murderers of his girlfriend.