 Salinger was assigned to a counter @-@ intelligence division , for which he used his proficiency in French and German to interrogate prisoners of war . In April 1945 he entered a liberated concentration camp , probably one of Dachau 's sub @-@ camps . Salinger earned the rank of Staff Sergeant and served in five campaigns . Salinger 's experiences in the war affected him emotionally . He was hospitalized for a few weeks for combat stress reaction after Germany was defeated , and he later told his daughter : " You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely , no matter how long you live . " Both of his biographers speculate that Salinger drew upon his wartime experiences in several stories , such as " For Esmé — with Love and Squalor " , which is narrated by a traumatized soldier . Salinger continued to write while serving in the army , publishing several stories in slick magazines such as Collier 's and The Saturday Evening Post . He also continued to submit stories to The New Yorker , but with little success ; it rejected all of his submissions from 1944 to 1946 , a group of 15 poems in 1945 alone . 
