J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [66]
On December 27, Salinger and his men reentered the shell of what had once been Echternach, where, according to the division report, they predictably “found no sign of any human habitants.” Within the town’s ruins, Sergeant Salinger at last found the opportunity to write home. His family and friends had not heard from him since December 16, the first day of battle.* Since then, American newspapers had been bursting with news of the counteroffensive and Salinger’s friends and family had begun to fear the worst.
During the struggle, Betty Yoder, an old friend of Salinger from Ursinus College, twice telegraphed Whit Burnett, asking for news. On December 31, she wrote, asking for “any information on Jerry Salinger.” She knew that he was stationed “near Echternach,” she said, and confided that although “He is a very valued friend,” he would “scorn [her] for this letter.”
Not until January did Miriam Salinger receive word from her son. Upon hearing the news of Salinger’s safety from her, Whit Burnett was genuinely relieved and scrawled a memo in response to Yoder: “Salinger well. Letter and photo to his mother dated December 27th also manuscript to his agent.”37
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The deeds and trials of the 12th Infantry Regiment are more than mere footnotes to the life and work of J. D. Salinger. They are ingrained in his person and in the stories he crafted. Salinger the man and the events of war are as inseparable as the author and the works that he penned. Equally, incidents that happened to the 1st or 2nd Battalion or to C, F, or E Company are not merely examples of what could have occurred in Salinger’s life; they are illustrations of what he actually endured. To know anything of the 4th Infantry Division during the Second World War is to realize that horror and bravery were the daily experience of all of its men.
When the Battle of the Bulge ended in January 1945, American troops of the 82nd Airborne Division crossed the border into the Hürtgen Forest, presumably on their way to Berlin. As they passed through the forest and into the Kall River Valley, they were forced to march on foot. The snows had begun to melt, and the mud of the trail made the valley impassable by jeeps. As they marched, the soldiers encountered scenes of horror. The melting snows revealed the corpses of thousands of American soldiers, many lying with arms frozen skyward as if in supplication.
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The pain of loss dominates Salinger’s seventh Caulfield story, “This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise.” No documentation exists to confirm exactly when this piece was written. Even after its publication by Esquire in October 1945,* no reference to the title can be found in any of the available correspondence of Salinger, Ober Associates, or Story Press. “Mayonnaise” is in all likelihood Salinger’s third story written on the battlefield, under construction and yet unnamed in September 1944, and may contain elements of his unpublished 1944 story “A Boy Standing in Tennessee,” which has vanished.
As “This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise” opens, Sergeant Vincent Caulfield is at boot camp in Georgia, sitting aboard a truck along with thirty-three other GIs. It is late evening, and despite a downpour the men are bound for a dance in town. But there is a problem. Only thirty men are allowed to go to the dance, and the group aboard the truck contains four extra. The truck is delayed while the men wait for a lieutenant from Special Services to arrive and resolve the issue. As they wait, the conversation among the men reveals that Vincent is in charge of the group and therefore responsible for excluding the extra men.
In a stream-of-consciousness exploration of loneliness and nostalgia, the narrative concentrates less on what is happening on the truck than on what is going on in Vincent’s mind. Vincent’s younger brother, Holden, has been reported missing in action in the Pacific and is probably dead. Vincent is traumatized by the news and unable to concentrate