"Last Day of the Last Furlough" relates the final day of Babe Gladwaller before he leaves to fight in World War II. Gladwaller spends part of the day with his little sister before Vincent Caulfield arrives. At that point Vincent is a fellow soldier about to leave for the war. Vincent announces that his brother, Holden, has been declared missing in action. There is some ambiguity here because Holden is both alive and a high school student in “Catcher,” which was written and published after the war, so it is not possible for him to have been a soldier during the 1940s and a high school student in the early 50s.