According to Sadler's autobiography, I'm a Lucky One, his father developed a successful plumbing and electrical business in Carlsbad and owned several farms in the area.

His parents divorced when Sadler was five, and his father died not long after at age 36 from a rare form of nervous system cancer.

His mother moved her family around as she worked at temporary jobs in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

In May 1965, while he was on a combat patrol southeast of Pleiku in the Central Highlands, he was severely wounded in the knee by a feces-covered punji stick.

Sadler dressed the wound with a cotton swab and an adhesive bandage, then completed the patrol; however, he subsequently developed a serious infection in his leg, and was evacuated to Clark Air Base Hospital in The Philippines.

Sadler recorded his famous song, "The Ballad of the Green Berets", a patriotic tune about the Special Forces, in December 1965.

Moore also wrote an introduction to Sadler's autobiography, I'm a Lucky One, which he dictated to Tom Mahoney and was published by the Macmillan Company in 1967.

Sadler was unable to score anything close to a major success with his other songs, though "The A-Team" was a Top 30 Billboard chart single during 1966.

After minor acting parts in four episodes of two TV western series, Death Valley Days and The High Chaparral, and in the 1968 caper film Dayton's Devils starring Rory Calhoun, he moved to Nashville and began writing pulp fiction novels.

On December 1, 1978, at about 11 p.m., Sadler shot a country music songwriter named Lee Emerson Bellamy with one bullet to the head.

[3] The shooting was the culmination of a month-long dispute the men had concerning Darlene Sharpe, who was Bellamy's former girlfriend, and Sadler's lover at the time.

Bellamy made many harassing telephone calls to Sadler and Sharpe, had one violent confrontation in a Nashville bar's parking lot, and threatened both their lives.

On the night in question, Bellamy made several threatening telephone calls, including one to the Natchez Trace Restaurant where Sadler and Sharpe were having dinner and drinks with two friends.

After a plea bargain, on June 1, 1979, Sadler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the death of Bellamy, and sentenced to from 4 to 5 years in prison.

[5][6] A dispute over who would be his legal guardian erupted between his wife and mother and resulted in a judge mandating a psychiatric evaluation.