This is one helluva title.

There's nothing private about the life of a private. There's certainly nothing private about that of Private Power.

From the time he entered the gates of the Marine Corps Base at San Diego, he was a marked man. It wasn't long after that-what with drill, the obstacle and bayonet courses, the rifle range-that he was more than marked. He was etched. And he was enjoying every etching on his hide. .

One of the etchings still decorated his trigger finger as he sat opposite me in the Public Relations office of The Marine Base today. 'Where I caught a bolt,' he said. More likely, I thought, were he'd caught several thousand bolts. .

He wasn't surprised that he'd banged up a finger. What amazed him was that either arm was still there. Just returned to boot camp from the rifle range at Camp Matthews, Tyrone Power felt, as al boots do, that the greater part of him was still nailed out there to a target. In his case, it was Target No. 22, to be revered always..

Ty had gone to chow, and was well on his way to get his paycheck when he was taken away from the other recruits and hustled up to the Public Relations office to see me. .

Watching for him as he came around the corner of the hall, I noticed with a start that he didn't look like the motion picture star whose advent into the service caused the feminine sigh that was heard 'round the world. He wore olive drab dungarees, a grey sweat shirt and no hair. He didn't look like a movie star at all. He looked even better. He looked like a Marine. .

With Private Power came his D.I. (drill instructor), Sgt. Stanley B. Plaszczynski. 'I spell it without the z's,' he admonished, watching me carefully as I did my darndest to spell it just any way. A healthy good-looking Pole, Ty's D.I. has been in the Marine Corps a considerable portion of his life, saw action at Pearl Harbor, and has been turning boots into marines here at the base for the past six months. .

He was busy turning Tyrone Power into one now, and took a definite stance just outside the door, to make sure that no blonde muffed the turn. .

Ty sat down facing me, wondering what on earth he'd done to bring such bad luck as my presence there. Publicity in the motion picture business is one thing. I the Marine Corps it's another. No marine wants any publicity he doesn't cook up with his own grenade. .

Giving credit where credit is due, I really owe this exclusive interview to a stick of chewing gum. Since he'd been in boot camp, Private Power had been looking for a stick of gum. I split mine with him, and safely beyond the view of the D.I. we chewed companionably and chatted as we chewed.

Ty had wanted to join some branch of the service ever since Pear Harbor, but out of deference to his studio, who had already invested a fortune in expensive assignments for him, he waited until he finished his last picture, 'Crash Dive,' to go in.

As a matter of fact, it was while he was on location at the submarine base at New London, Conn., making this picture, that Tyrone Power definitely decided to become a Marine.

'I kept stacking them up'the different fellows in uniform,' he said, 'and it seemed to me that of those I met the finest type of men were in the marines.'

He didn't want a commission or to go through with any of 'that stuff,' he said, shrugging off gold bars as though they were so much lead. 'I wanted to go into something new and different. Well'brother, I did'and brother, it is,' he grinned.

En route back to Hollywood from the 'crash Dive' location, Ty stopped over in Washington and got himself signed up and sworn in at the Marine Recruiting Office, with permission to remain on inactive service until the film was completed.

Thus January 4 found him with a one-way coach ticket on a train bound for San Diego. He arrived at the Base around 3:30 in the afternoon and went immediately over to the Recruit Depot, where he had no trouble finding himself an audience.

The boys at the Depot had been eagerly awaiting this moment ever since they heard he was coming into their outfit. They ganged around and frankly stared at the good-looking movie star with the athletic build, the luscious, long, dark hair. The stared with interest at his 'civvy' clothes-brown tweed coat, yellow sport shirt and slacks.

Most of them felt sorry for him, as one of them at the Depot explained tome. 'We knew what he was letting himself I for. We knew everybody would be 'out' for him.'

He won their hearts right there on the spot. Somebody in the Depot, a little over-excited at having such a celebrity in their midst, asked another boot to pick Ty's luggage and carry it over to the recruit barracks. Tyrone colored and flatly refused. 'I'm a boot, too'.remember?'

According to custom, hew as soon assigned to a tent with two other boots for the three days of physical and mental examinations, shots, etc. Said tent, a doll-size structure sleeps one man uncomfortable and three still more uncomfortably.

Later they were issued dungarees, sea bags and buckets (the better to wash with, my dear). Then late one evening they were marched down to Hut No. 517 in boot camp. The huts stand row after row on the back lot of the Marine Base. Grayish in color they suggest the tropics, without looking picturesque-a far cry from the star's palatial Brentwood home.

All the other boots were in bed when Ty reached the hut. He couldn't see a thing as he stumbled around trying to find where to park his sea bag and hit the sack. It was past time to hit the sack, one of the boots whispered. It was 2200 o'clock. Used to Hollywood hours, Ty didn't think it could be that late. Didn't even seem like 200 o'clock. But he hit the sack anyway, worrying a little because he couldn't find 0500 on the alarm clock. That wasn't anything to worry about, the boot whispered. The bugler would make sure that he got up. The bugler did.

He got up with the other boots around five A.M. at night It was still too dark to see anybody or anything. Ty finally felt his way into some sort of formation to march with the rest through the blackness to 'mess M' for chow.

After that, they probed their way to one of the lecture sheds, the miniature bleachers in which a boot spends most of his time (when he isn't bayoneting and learning to be a tough Marine), listening to lectures about how to be a good marine.

as dawn came, he started peering curiously at the shivering boots on all sides of him, to see what kind of a hand he'd drawn-the boys of Platoon Three.

Gradually, as it grew lighter, it became apparent that two sailors were out front lecturing them. Two sailors! It was enough to make a boot go back to bed and weep.

'You're in the Marine Corps now,' they said. 'You'll have o use for money. Your privileges will be few-no cars, no gas, but an over-seas card.'

Then finally they let the bars down. 'So since you have no use for it, there's no better way to invest the money you have in your pocket right now than in war savings stamps and bonds!'

Private Power almost fell off the bleacher stand. Those were old words, it's true, but right now they took on new meaning. For Private Power had no money.

As they made their own contributions, the Third Platoon looked eagerly, expectantly, at Tyrone. They had a movie star in their gang. He'd do the platoon proud. He'd make a showing.

He did. Under the unwavering gaze of the sailors, the D.I., and the other boots, Ty kept milking his dungarees frantically. But did as he would, he couldn't raise enough to buy one bond. The boys' faces fell. It was indeed enough to make a boot go back to his bed and weep.

Although he didn't know it then, Private Power had a season ticket to that lecture shed for the duration. Here, night after night, the D.I. held one-sided forums, showed training films, and gave lectures. Here in these sheds is born the fames esprit de corps. Here the Third Platoon learned the meaning of the Marine motto, 'Sempler Fidelis''about the Battle of Belleau Wood and the tough sarge who took his men over the top yelling, 'Come on-d'ya wanna live forever?'

Of course, in those first days of boot camp, when you're counting your corpuscles and wondering if there are enough to last another day, some of this lecturing falls on deaf ears. Especially that wanting to live forever business. You don't want to live forever. You just don't want to live.

As he reminisced, Ty unconsciously raised his bandaged finger to his head now and them, in the old nervous gesture of ruffling his hair. He gave it up after several attempts. There wasn't anything there to ruffle.

'I've had it cut four times already,' he said. 'It grows so damn fast.'

Well did he remember his first bob. He'd had his hair pretty well clipped off for his role as a naval officer in 'Crash Dive,' so it was with no particular far that he approached the small grayish building opposite the lecture sheds, housing the recruit barber shop.

marching into the shop wit some of his comrades, Tyrone saw that he's drawn the No. 1 barber hair, belonging to Arthur Burton, a tall dark haired fellow who looked like a pleasant chap. As if that meant anything! So do dentists and undertakers.

It didn't take Private Power long to learn that these G.I. barbers are thoroughgoing craftsmen. If they can't find anything to cut at first glance, they pull out their microscopes and look again. They have a technique all their own: (1) First take hold of the ends of the hair and cut with scissors to one-thousandth of an inch, or reasonable facsimile. (2) Take the clippers for a mop-up campaign. It there's anything left'.it's a mirage.

Getting into the No. 1 chair, Ty noticed that some of the other chairs were empty. 'Stayed home'sick'over-work,' explained the barber. Two of those who had shown up were kept busy raking up the overflow of hair on the floor. There was a big G.I. can into which the shovelfuls of hair were dumped.

The barber kept talking as Ty took his place in the chair. They cut up to 350 heads a day on a 'good tight day,' he explained cheerfully. Maybe 180 when heads slacked off some.

Even the recruit barber lost his perspective a little, however, at having such a famous head in his grasp. 'Tyrone, do you want me to go easy?'

'Nope,' said Ty, watching the other heads around him grow nakeder by the second. 'I want it just like theirs.'

And it was'only more so. Within fifty seconds Tyrone Power was just another boot.

Watching his hair being mopped up, Private Power remembered the many tedious hours that Russ, his studio barber, had spent on those locks during the past five years, careful to get each individual hair just right. He remembered Russ-and grinned. Then he tore on of the 25 cent coupons out of his $1 barber coupon book, paid Barber Burton, and promptly sat down and gave all the barbers the autographs they had asked for.

It was eagerly apparent to the boys in Platoon Three that theirs was a marked platoon-destined to become immortal, like the Foreign Legion or the last train from Berlin.

To begin with, they were placed in an 'isolation ward' the minute they were assigned to the boot camp area. In front of their hut was a huge sign: 'This is Platoon three'.No Visitors Allowed.' It was intended to keep the curious away.

'The boys in the Third Platoon were swell,' said Ty. 'Didn't bother me at all. It wasn't until I started talking to them that they even noticed me!'

What Private Power didn't know-and still doesn't know-is that the boys' indifferent was a planned pact. They were really as curious as all get-out. But, liking Ty immediately, realizing that he was on the spot, that in all probability he would never be off it, they decided that Private Power was going to have his chance to make a marine of himself.

Well aware that he was tackling the hardest role of his career, Private Power worked over-time on that role-with no assistance from a Hollywood director.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Stanley B. Plascynski-without-the-z's was having his own worries along this line. The 'z's' were the only things he left out. Because he had a famous motion picture star in his platoon, he put them through boot camp on the double double. He let them have it heavy and hard.

A D.I. serves as a mother for his platoon-a little on the Lady Macbeth side, yet a mother nevertheless. Others describe him as a sort of Jekyll and Hyde. And every boot will tell you he spends 75 percent of the time working on the Hyde. Theirs.

'The boots want out to be tough,' Sgt. Plascynski had said to me earlier, out on the parade ground. 'They're disappointed if you're not.' Great pains were taken at the Marine Base to see that no such disappointment should come to the Third Platoon.

Not that Plascynski isn't a genial guy, as far as D.I.'s go-which isn't far. He'd never even seen Tyrone Power on the screen. He didn't go for those fancy movie stars, anyway. He went for Donald Duck.

but it wasn't long until Private Power had the situation well in hand.

'He's a good recruit.' The D.I. told me. 'A good influence on the other boys, too. Nobody wanted to get out of his platoon. They were proud to be in his squad. They copied the way he marched.'

And since Ty was usually marching the right way, high honors were marked up for the Third Platoon.

Despite the fact that he was in crack condition from recent action-filled adventure films, Tyrone Power was worried about the physical exertion of boot camp. 'I wondered whether or not I could stand the pace set by boys ten years younger.

'Seems funny now,' he went on. He laughed at how he learned to hike several miles with a 25 pound pack on his back, when two brisk blocks on Wilshire Boulevard used to make him puff.

As squad leader he acted as pivot man in the platoon. He thanked his lucky stars for past acquaintance with Ernst Lubitsch, Gregory Ratoff and other Hollywood dialecticians. It helped him now to understand Sgt. Plascynski.

Drill Instructors have a cryptic jargon all their own. Marching along on the parade ground with the platoon, they say things like, 'One, two, three'Hut toop, three, four' your left'right, loft, swing along yo' loft.' Bad enough, yes. But imagine it with a Polish accent!

There were other hazards-those blistering hours, plunging in and out of the plushy sand of the boon docks with rifles and packs, under a scorching sun.

Other hours of running the obstacle course, out on the back lot of the Base. That course includes: running through a big bed of wire-covered boarding; running over the smooth and slick inclines of three 'henhouses'-lean-tos tilted toward each other at steep angles; walking an overhead ladder; running through a series of half-buried boxes; scaling a twelve-foot wall; swinging along a rope over a pit full of water; crawling up a heavy cargo net (similar to the landing nets on ships); crawling on all fours through a narrow, low tunnel; racing some 50 yards through sand; and then gasping to the finish. You do it in two minutes. If you do it.

It was the wall that almost stoped Ty, as it almost stops everybody. That slick twelve-foot wall. Finally he learned that the trick is to gather momentum and once going, never look nor stop. Remembering a Douglas Fairbanks feat, he gathered momentum and ran for the wall without stopping. He reached the other side all right-flat on his face.

When the D.I. finally called it a day, the Third Platoon would go back to their hut, No. 517, to take care of homier, more intimate details, such as the days' wash.

Come four-thirty O.M. and you'd find Private Power lined up with the other boots in front of Mess 'M,' hanging on tight to his mess gear. He was still hanging onto it after chow, peeling the skin off his hands by dunking the gear up and down in the steaming vats beside themes.

Then back they would march to their hut to try to uncurl their muscles, to write letters, or maybe just to 'fan the breeze' with each other until 2100 o'clock and taps.

Sometimes they fanned it a little over-time, to the personal discomfort of Sgt. Plascynski. As a remedy, he had a Private Power and the other inmates of '517,' with buckets on their heads, march around all the huts singing 'I Love you Truly' to the tune of Marine Hymn!'

Pvt Ty Power As Marines See Him! You've just seen the making of a marine, through the eyes of Private Power himself. The conclusion, in July STARDOM, brings you a still more revealing picture-what his comrades-in-arms really think of Ty. And Hank Fonda's embarrassing visit gives you a sailor's eye view of Pvt. 'T. E. Power.'

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