The story, told in the first-person by a narrator named Garrity, takes place days after D-Day.
Garrity finds out that the soldier he sees is in fact Gardner's son (who has not been born yet) about to go into combat during World War III.
“‘The Magic Foxhole’ is a strong condemnation of war and one that could have been written only by a soldier…Its message countered the propaganda common in 1944 with a frankness that could have been interpreted as subversive…Even had this story slipped by the military censors, it is hard to imagine a publisher with the courage to print it.”—Biographer Kenneth Slawenski in J. D. Salinger: A Life (2010)[1] The 21 page story was written in 1944[2] while Salinger was in the service during D-Day “the first he wrote while on the front line and the only work in which he depicted active combat.”[3] and was submitted to The New Yorker but rejected.
Salinger noted in at least one letter[4] he believed the piece was a demonstration of the "psychological drama" he began to place in his character's heads, particularly war veterans.
He had a high opinion of the piece, which will not be published until 2060, and after much discussion it was planned to be included in the collection he arranged with Whit Burnett and Story Press' Lippincott imprint,[5] but the deal fell through, much to the author's consternation.