Foxhole Baby

In their foxholes on Bougainville and Luzon, two G.I.s hatched a postwar plan. Neither had much of a job to go home to. Corporal Raymond Utin, 24, had worked as a cub on Philadelphia papers. Corporal Fred Schutz, 22, had tried freelancing, never had a story published. Their Skeezix-&-Wilmer idea: a magazine for Manilans.

They got $625 from a Filipino lawyer, put up $825 between themselves. The editors took pen names: Utin, whose name is a dirty word in Tagalog, became Eric Raymond. His partner, wanting something fancier than Schutz, became Chris Edwards. The first issue of the Philippine-American was peddled in horse-drawn jitney carts, was a 2,000-copy sellout.

It made no money. But Manilans took a shine to its brash love of controversy. One article stated the case for Filipinos who contended that they had had to collaborate or else. Another sailed into G.I. Joe, told him to quit criticizing the Filipinos, give them a break.

Last week customers were snapping up the 8,000 copies of their fifth issue, and the two G.I.s had $5,000 in the bank. Inside the magazine's chaste blue cover were plenty of ads, dashes of fiction and poetry, an article by Saturday Evening Post Associate Editor Edgar Snow, predicting no big war in the next ten years.

Editors Utin and Schutz, who by Army permission have put out their Philippine-American in spare time, soon will return to the U.S. to be discharged. Then, unlike 99% of their buddies, they will turn around, return to the Philippines. Full of plans for two more magazines, they have already achieved something that is still ahead for the Philippines: a measure of respectable independence.

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