"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the October 1945 issue of Esquire.
[1][2] The story was published in the 1958 anthology The Armchair Esquire, edited by Arnold Gingrich and L. Rust Hills.
"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is the seventh of Salinger's nine works dealing with members of the Caulfield family.
[3] The story describes Vincent Caulfield's experience at a Georgia boot camp before embarking for the war.
Biographer Kenneth Slawenski speculates on how this reality may have affected Salinger's handling of the story: Grappling to deal with death, Salinger casts himself as Vincent Caulfield, who, mirroring his creator, remained torn between repressing his feelings and admitting the reality in which he was embroiled.
[7]In "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise," Salinger uses a present-tense internal monologue to examine the anguished speculation of an older brother, Vincent, obsessing over his beloved younger brother Holden, who is reported missing-in-action while serving in combat during World War II.
So I grabbed Phoebe, and she had some kid with her named Minerva (which killed me), and I put them both in the car and then I looked around for Holden.
[11]"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is evidence of Salinger's early interest in themes concerning the reconstruction of an idealized past, as in the Glass family stories.