The Long Gray Line

The Long Gray Line is a 1955 American Technicolor drama film in CinemaScope directed by John Ford based on the life of Marty Maher. Tyrone Power stars as the scrappy Irish immigrant whose 50year career at West Point took him from a dishwasher to a noncommissioned officer and athletic instructor. Maher was buried there in January 1961.

The movie is framed as the reminiscences of Master Sergeant Martin Maher Tyrone Power, who first came to West Point in 1898 as a civilian employee. Arriving from County Tipperary, Ireland, Marty begins as a waiter. When he realizes that enlisted men receive better treatment than do hired laborers, he immediately signs up. Capt. Koehler Ward Bond, impressed with his boxing skills, wants him as an assistant in athletics instruction.Marty meets Mrs. Koehlers cook, Mary ODonnell Maureen OHara, also recently arrived from Ireland. They marry and settle into a house on campus. Marty becomes a corporal, and Mary saves enough money to bring his father Donald Crisp and brother Sean McClory to America. Mary becomes pregnant, but the baby dies only hours after birth, and Mary learns that she may never have another child. The cadets become the children they will never have. Over time, Marty continues to earn the love and respect of cadets such as Omar Bradley, James Van Fleet, George Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Mahers grow close to the family of Red Sundstrom, a former cadet killed in World War I. ........

Source: Wikipedia