The Long Gray Line

Marty Maher arrives from County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1898 and takes a job bussing tables. He is docked for every dish he breaks and has little to show for his effort. Realizing he needs a different path, he decides to enlist in the U.S. Army.

Two months after arriving, the discouraged Marty enlists in the Army. Captain Koehler, Master of the Sword, recognizes his fist-fighting ability and brings him on as an athletics instructor.

Marty meets Mary O'Donnell, Koehler's cook, who has just arrived from Ireland. The Koehlers urge patience until he re-enlists and proposes, and the couple marries, settling into a house on campus.

Marty earns the rank of corporal and becomes a swimming instructor after Koehler teaches him to swim. This assignment begins his long association with teaching cadets.

Mary gives birth to a boy who dies shortly after. Marty drinks in grief, and the cadets bring him home when he oversteps limits; in the morning Mary reveals she cannot have another child.

The cadets become the Mahers' surrogate sons, and Marty earns the love and respect of future generals such as Omar Bradley, James Van Fleet, George Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. He even jokes about his own hair loss, which becomes a lighthearted motif.

Marty introduces cadet Red Sundstrom to Kitty Carter for tutoring. They marry after graduation in 1917, and Red goes off to war with his classmates.

Casualty lists arrive as Marty marks the losses in the yearbooks with black ribbons on the pages of fallen cadets. Red earns the Medal of Honor and an automatic appointment to the academy for his infant son.

Years later, Red Sundstrom, Jr. and his classmates are sworn in, and Marty has guided three generations of cadets. On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor shocks the nation, and Red confesses he was married over Thanksgiving weekend, risking expulsion.

Disappointed but proud, Marty watches Red resign and enlist in the Army. Meanwhile, Mary, weakened, dies quietly on Christmas Eve, 1944, as Marty tends to her.

On Christmas Eve 1944, cadets join Marty for a quiet dinner as Red Sundstrom, Jr. arrives with medals earned in Europe. He asks Marty to pin on his captain's bars, symbolizing a new generation of cadets.

The president asks General Dotson to locate the SNAFU and Marty is given a bottle of hair restorer, but Dotson declares him AWOL and returns him to the Point. At the parade ground, Garryowen plays and the superintendent declares a tribute to Marty.

The film closes with a full dress parade in Marty's honor. The living and the dead join the celebration as the band plays Auld Lang Syne, bringing tears to Marty's eyes.