"Don Ashbaugh served in both World War I and World War II as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes and as editor of an airbase newspaper. And in between he graduated from the University of Southern California in 1927 and worked on newspapers from Manila to Paris, including nine years in Los Angeles, first with the Los Angeles County News and then with the Los Angeles Times.

In 1934 he joined the publicity department of Paramount Pictures. When World War II broke out in 1941, he joined the army.