Jerome David Salinger was born at NY Nursery and Child's Hospital in 1919. His father's name was Sol and his mother's name was Miriam. He also has an older sister whose name is Doris. His father was Jewish and his mother was Irish Catholic. Being half Jewish was a conflict for J.D.
             J.D. had a very distant relationship with his father, who worked for a meat and cheese business. He was sent to Poland as a child to see that end of the meat business. He was so disgusted by the slaughterhouses that he decided to take a different career path, rather than inherit the family business like his father wanted him to do. This also led to him becoming a vegetarian. Another reason he and his father had a bad relationship was because his father was Jewish and J.D. didn't want to be classified as a Jew because people were openly racist against Jews in the 30's and 40's. He and his father's relationship got so bad that he didn't bother attending his funeral.
             J.D. grew up in Manhattan. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy, which is in Pennsylvania. He got sent to military school for flunking out of two private schools. His mother took him to the entrance interview and he was accepted two days later. He was the manager of the fencing team. He succeeded in military school and enjoyed it. His enjoyment of military school soon ended when World War II began.
             In World War II, J.D. would see on average 50 of his fellow soldiers die in a day. He said sometimes he would see as many as 200 of them die. For the first couple weeks of the war, 75% of the soldiers in his unit died, and that percentage eventually grew to 125%.
             After graduating from the military academy, Salinger went to NYU briefly. He later left because he did not apply himself. He then went to Ursinus College. He said he enjoyed it because it wasn't an Ivy League school. His friends say that he was a loner and
             ...