‘The grey everyday of guard duty’: tracing military boredom in field reports of Swedish military chaplains 1940–45

Abstract

This article constitutes an addition to the scant literature on military boredom. It offers a close reading of field reports written by Swedish military chaplains during the Second World War and seeks to explore the lived experience of waiting for war. It analyses how the military inactivity of Swedish soldiers were depicted and how it was thought to impact morale and motivation. This article showcases how military boredom may be studied through archival research and how the study of boredom as a military phenomenon benefits from an exploration of various kinds of experiences, on as well as (far) off the battlefield.

Keywords:

• Second World War
• Swedish Armed Forces
• military boredom
• morale
• archival research

Sweden was one of the few states in Europe which managed to stay out of the Second World War. Still, Sweden was in a heightened state of alert throughout the war, partially mobilised, and Swedish soldiers continuously waited for the war to come. In total, around two million Swedish men were drafted during the Second World War¹ and thus at some point waited for a war that never came.² On 30 June 1945, when the heightened state of alert formally ended, the Swedish troops had been waiting for five years and ten months.

The longer the war dragged on without Swedish military involvement, the more the military inactivity of the Swedish troops was increasingly considered a problem for the maintenance of motivation and morale.³ Yet, already prior to and in the beginning of the war, Swedish military command recognised the need to develop and expand the organisation of manpower care. In February 1940, the Swedish Armed Forces’ headquarters set up a department dedicated to, among other things, pastoral care, field libraries, leisure activities, educational activities and social care.⁴ In many respects, these sections and working groups were set up to fill the spare time of the drafted soldiers and keep up their spirit and morale during long periods of duty, often far away from loved ones and from home.

We have entered the fifth year of war. For every day that goes by, greater and greater demands are placed on our preparedness. All measures must be taken so that the men deployed do not lose their spirit and become inattentive and bored. Field report, September–December 1943.⁵

Whilst much research on military affairs and war in general, and the Second World War in particular, focuses on the twists and turns and drama of military action, and – of course – the death and slaughter that comes with it, less research has been dedicated to the continuously mundane aspects of the war experience, and the humdrum of military service.⁶ As the saying goes: war typically consists of ‘5% horror and 95% boredom’,⁷ and military operations have been described as a sequence, moving from boredom to sudden terror, and then back to boredom.⁸ Aspects such as waiting and monotony are often foregrounded elements in military memoirs or biographical accounts of war.⁹ These are also recurring themes in discussions on the military profession, as routine and seemingly meaningless tasks appear as fully integrated aspects of soldierly life and work.¹⁰ As it appears, war is in part defined by the act of waiting, whilst boredom is considered a natural aspect of the everyday in the military. As J. Glenn Gray claims in his philosophical memoir of his four years of service during the Second World War, ‘…everyone knows that war can be the most excruciatingly boring of all human activities’.¹¹ Also, when recounting his experience as an embedded journalist in the US war in Afghanistan, Sebastian Junger explains that the boredom is ‘so relentless that the men openly hope for an attack’.¹²

This article adds to the literature on the in-between moments in war, on the waiting in warfare, and the waiting for war.¹³ As most previous research on war as an emotional experience in general¹⁴ and on military boredom in particular¹⁵ tend to focus (quite naturally) on warring parties, the case of Sweden offers something different; given its history of more than 200 years of peace, few countries in Europe have waited for war as long as Sweden. The Swedish military experience in modern history is thus one of endlessly waiting, of remaining on the brink of war, of enduring war’s periphery. To critically reflect on this experience of waiting and add to our understanding of military boredom and its effects, this article offers an empirical analysis of reports and correspondence related to manpower care during Swedish mobilisation throughout the Second World War. Primarily, the analysis focuses on field reports written by Swedish military chaplains who, throughout the war, were responsible for the pastoral care of drafted soldiers at military units and posts, i.e. the care of those who were assigned to hurry up and wait. The chaplains reported back to the Swedish Armed Forces headquarters on recent religious and other activities, their experience of pastoral counselling, and their impression of the soldiers’ moral behaviour¹⁶ and – most importantly – morale. How was the act of waiting depicted and problematised in these reports? What traces of boredom could be found in their reflections on morale? When did military boredom become manifest, and how was boredom expected to affect morale and motivation?

Military boredom

In the literature on military boredom, which is relatively scarce, boredom is commonly addressed as a problem. Feelings of boredom are depicted as closely linked to social problems such as substance abuse and criminal behaviour.¹⁷ In worst case, it could lead to atrocity.¹⁸ Boredom could potentially also signify great danger for soldiers and officers themselves, as it is associated with reduced or distorted awareness, affecting combat situation awareness.¹⁹ It simply affects soldiers’ sensory abilities and readiness for combat.²⁰ Thus, as a military phenomenon, boredom is considered a problem that needs to be addressed, dealt with, prevented and reduced. Humour is often emphasised as an antidote to boredom.²¹ Maps and war-games may also be considered forms of amusement (rather than just tools for military planning and analysis) that serve to avert feelings such as boredom.²² Likewise, exercises and training have been seen as much-needed breaks in the humdrum of everyday life in the military.²³ Although exercises keep troops occupied in periods of waiting and possibly serve to reduce negative feelings, they may soon also come to be perceived as predictable and routine.²⁴

Essentially, boredom may be understood as a generative force and potentially productive. Waiting could, for instance, spur violence – as when military operations become so tedious that the soldiers wish for an attack,²⁵ when one orders an attack to simply keep one’s troops occupied,²⁶ or when periods of training appear so monotonous that the war ultimately is embraced as a relief.²⁷ On a societal and more abstract level, peace itself may even be perceived as inherently and unbearably dull, making war a release or welcomed escape.²⁸ Thus, boredom does things – it enforces action, change, escape. Hence, as Huxford argues in her study of the productive role of boredom in Britain’s Cold War military, we ‘need to move away from interpretations that view boredom as a psychological or military “problem” alone, to understanding it as a social phenomenon embedded within specific historic contexts’.²⁹ For instance, Harding discusses the boredom experienced by contemporary peacekeepers, and argues that their experience of boredom essentially is to be considered ‘neoliberal boredom’. Boredom is here linked to ‘unmet desire’ and a lack of transformative experiences, rather than the absence of combat as such.³⁰

As previous research suggests, feelings of boredom are perhaps contingent upon expectations. Harris and Segal assert in their study of an American battalion engaged in peacekeeping in the Sinai during the early 1980s, that it was the riflemen that were most likely to complain about boredom; as riflemen, they were ‘oriented toward action’, but were now serving on observation posts, where there was next to nothing to observe and report.³¹ Whilst they usually trained for and anticipated high-intensity warfare, the soldiers ‘had no models adequate to predict their experiences’.³² Danish soldiers described to be seeking ‘authenticity’ during their deployment to Afghanistan found themselves caught up in social and existential waiting; their ‘warrior dreams’ did not materialise, and they just ended up waiting for the waiting to end.³³ Also the First World War has been described as an ‘eternal contradiction between the ideal and the reality’;³⁴ as testimonies of Czech soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army attest to, the front was certainly no place for traditional masculine virtues:³⁵

They were waiting even while in the firing line – waiting for orders to come, for something to happen, for a shell to be fired and bury them indiscriminately in the ground: ‘Waking up, one is horrified by the thought that there’s nothing else to do the whole day but to stay awake and stare forward, to starve and do nothing.’³⁶

The theme of military boredom speaks to the scholarly discussion on how war is experienced and felt, or imprinted in our minds and on our bodies,³⁷ yet it also feeds into the literature on how soldiers’ motivation and will to fight have been thought of, addressed, maintained and disturbed, possibly lost, throughout modern history.³⁸ Since it is closely associated with morale, explorations of boredom are thus part of a larger quest to grasp the human factor in warfare. Enduring isolation and waiting (for an attack) have, for instance, been considered critical aspects of the psychology of combat.³⁹ Military boredom may, however, be understood as a larger military phenomenon, not necessarily restricted to the front or the battlefield as such; thus, to also explore the soldierly experience of finding oneself stuck in a space between war and peace, of endlessly preparing for war but never really facing it, arguably adds to our general comprehension of war as experience.

Tracing boredom in military records

As Huxford notes, the history of war, or historical accounts in general, usually ‘privilege action over passivity’; thus, historians tend to look for ‘archival or oral traces of decision-making, causes or consequences’.⁴⁰ To look rather for inactivity and instances of waiting is not necessarily an easy task for the archival researcher; quite naturally, that which is not considered relevant is neither restored nor reported. So, how are we to capture and study moments defined by perceived absence, moments when seemingly nothing happens, the so-called moments in-between?

The empirical focus of this article is the military records of the department of manpower care at the Swedish armed forces’ headquarters (1940–1945), and specifically the reports and correspondence of military chaplains and military representatives responsible for leisure activities. Most often, these reports take the shape of an inquiry form, which the chaplains filled in. The report template included questions on religious activities and the soldiers’ level of sobriety and sexual morality, yet this study has primarily focused on the chaplains’ comments and reflections on the question that specifically concern the so-called ‘general spirit’.

The spirit appears to be good, despite long and monotonous duty. Field report, May 1943.⁴¹

As the report template itself indicated, the role of the chaplains within the Armed Forces at the time of war may be considered somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, they are expected to fulfil a strictly instrumental role, namely to uphold the soldiers’ will to fight and thus improve military effectiveness; on the other hand, they are expected to act as representatives of the church, focusing on pastoral care, and nurturing the soldiers’ moral virtues.⁴² The chaplains mainly came from the Church of Sweden (which is an Evangelical Lutheran national church), yet about a third of them represented the so-called free churches.⁴³ As will become evident in the empirical analysis, the field reports very much reflected the chaplains’ moral beliefs, e.g. criticising the soldiers’ interactions with civilian/local girls, or questioning the soldiers’ choice of leisure activities, etc. Interestingly, the reports also represented more or less an outsider’s perspective on life in the barracks; as such, they documented and concerned themselves with issues beyond military effectiveness, such as the soldiers’ wellbeing.

In the reading of field reports, I have looked for expressions of boredom broadly; essentially, I have attempted to follow Toohey’s call to be creative in looking for synonyms for boredom.⁴⁴ As there are many ways of implying that life and work are tedious, I have carefully considered all references to leisure activities, inactivity, tiredness, fatigue, feelings of demoralisation, questions of meaning and purpose. Since they are generally regarded as things that makes something boring, I have been particularly attentive to problematisations of predictability, monotony, repetition, or minimal variation, confinement, and lack of interaction.⁴⁵ Theoretical accounts of boredom have intriguingly charted its phenomenology and distinct characteristics; for instance, it has been discussed how feelings of boredom differ from other feelings or moods such as fatigue,⁴⁶ ennui or depression.⁴⁷ This article, however, does not seek to engage in discussions on the characterisation of boredom, nor does it set out to map or examine the actual level of boredom experienced among drafted Swedish soldiers throughout the Second World War. The analysis rather explores how military inactivity was depicted by the military chaplains and how the act of waiting was constructed and highlighted as a social and (potential) military problem. Although inactivity and waiting do not necessarily, or automatically, amount to boredom, the assumption guiding the research design and the empirical analysis is that continuous inactivity and long periods of waiting likely generate feelings usually associated with or closely related to the concept of boredom.

The empirical material consists of fragments, or ‘traces’, that have been collected from a total of eight volumes of archived field reports written by military chaplains (1941–1945) and one volume consisting of field reports from military assistants (1942), all stored at the Swedish War Archive. The twenty-three pages of material consists of quotations that in various ways address, touch upon or relate to the issue of boredom as elaborated above. Based on my own observations in the archive as well as discussions with the archive’s staff, the Swedish military records are not complete; rather, what has been preserved is generally a reflection of what bureaucrats throughout the twentieth century considered noteworthy and essential. In some respects, the military records are a result of randomisation and shifting local routines, or so I have been told by the War Archive staff; this means that regiments or headquarters historically have made different decisions on what to save and archive. Yet, the field reports of military chaplains have evidently been stored in a fairly systematic way, with a substantial number of reports still saved, and ordered chronologically. Although evidently there are gaps, the reports cover the life and work of units geographically dispersed throughout Sweden – from north to south, and from the west to the east coast. The empirical analysis presented below is structured around themes that are recurrent in the field reports; thus, it focuses on what comes to dominate the representations of inaction and waiting, essentially what I consider traces of boredom.

Traces of boredom in Swedish military field reports and correspondence, 1940–1945

Throughout the years of high alert for the Swedish Armed Forces (1939–1945), most of the military chaplains reporting back to the Armed Forces HQ certify that the spirit among the troops are quite good, good, very good, or even exceptionally good. Reading through the reports, from beginning to end, these phrases gradually come to constitute an act of repetition, appearing as something written down in a routinely manner. Statements on ‘the general spirit’ often appear as short additions to more elaborate testimonies on the level of sobriety and the sexual morality of the soldiers, which the military chaplains – as representatives of the church – clearly are eager to reflect upon or complain about. The military records themselves, however, bear witness to the fact that the inaction and inactivity of Swedish soldiers, the endlessly waiting around, was considered a potential problem for the morale and fighting spirit of Swedish troops (and not just their moral behaviour in general), and something that was prioritised and addressed. In 1943, a military chaplain even allowed himself to reflect on the large resources allocated to leisure activities; he wondered, perhaps the soldiers were a bit spoiled?⁴⁸ In file box after file box with archived documents from the department of manpower care, one finds extensive correspondence on the organisation of theatre shows, film viewings, or lecture series and study circles, and accounting reports on the purchase of footballs or tool boxes, or receipts from the repairing of radios. In February 1941, the head of the leisure activities section received a letter from a military chief asking for a visit from a speaker, a magician, an entertainment group or the like. His men have been in service for a long time and this, he explained, is one of many attempts to arrange meaningful activities in their spare time.⁴⁹ Reading the letter, one can sense that his men were starting to get really bored.

In what follows, I elaborate on three major themes in the empirical material, which bring to light how the issue of boredom is represented and addressed in the field reports concerning manpower care throughout the Second World War. First, the chaplains often dwelt upon and problematised (read: moralised) the soldiers’ leisure activities of choice, and how they used their time of waiting. Second, they repeatedly and consistently pointed out the social problem of remote and isolated posts, with staff perpetually waiting for Sweden to be attacked. Third, the reports recurrently reflected on how the lack of action triggered feelings of meaninglessness among the drafted men.

Killing time

In place of protecting the Swedish borders by fighting enemy units, Swedish soldiers throughout the Second World War were busy killing time. In correspondence and reports, there are recurring references to what is called fritidsproblemet, meaning the spare time problem. The chaplains described how troops kept active with handicraft work, knitting, painting and sculpting. It is easier for the drafted soldiers to find meaningful activities in the summertime, they noted;⁵⁰ then they could play sports, go swimming or fishing, pick berries or mushrooms in the woods. In a report from the military subdistrict of Karlstad in November 1943, a chaplain related how ‘every other man made matchstick art’.⁵¹ Another chaplain emphasised the importance of making a yearly exhibition, to display the soldiers’ handicraft work; thereby, soldiers would be encouraged to make the most of their spare time, and hopefully not settle for playing cards or reading ‘all sorts of silly magazines’.⁵²

What the drafted men did with their spare time seemed to constitute an issue of great concern – for the chaplains themselves, the armed forces, and ultimately society more broadly. For, what would happen to post-war Sweden, if its drafted men had been doing nothing for years?⁵³ In 1943, a chaplain reported that the general spirit had deteriorated. The troops had ‘slacked off’ – the level of alcohol abuse had increased and gambling seemed to be common, all due to the drawn-out period of being on guard and the lack of demanding exercises.⁵⁴ In short, this was military inactivity at its worse. As an opposite, a report covering a whole year of pastoral care activities (July 1942–3) noted that a majority of the drafted men ‘carry the burdens of being on guard manly and with perseverance’; many of them used their spare time for studies and updating of skills.⁵⁵ Keeping spirits up, making the most out of military inactivity, improving oneself rather than just wasting time, were clearly seen as virtues in the reports. These virtues came to signal Swedish masculinity in times that offered ‘few opportunities for masculine combative military heroism’.⁵⁶

Card games and gambling were often mentioned in the chaplains’ reports, and this was very much interpreted as a major social problem; concerns regarding the extent of soldiers’ card playing were raised repeatedly throughout these years. For instance, one report expressed indignation over the fact that gambling almost seemed to have become an obsession; walking through the military compound in the evening, one found gambling in every barrack, he noted.⁵⁷ Another report referred to an ‘epidemic of excessive card playing’.⁵⁸

No one opposes the service as such. It’s worse with the spare time. Here and there, greasy, much-used decks of cards and empty bottles, poorly hidden, speak silently of ‘the tediousness of the countryside’. Field report, September 1944.⁵⁹

Creating interest for leisure activities is a challenge. All such efforts get stuck, due to a solid and firm lack of drive [among the soldiers]. Eating and sleeping and playing cards seem to be satisfaction enough. As of yet, I haven’t visited any compound that lacks a pack of cards. Bibles and books of worship on the other hand… Field report, February 1944.⁶⁰

Reports of this kind generally give the impression that card games and gambling helped time pass, and that such activities pushed aside negative feelings such as boredom. Playing cards here though very much appears as a moral issue. In fact, card games as an antidote to boredom seems worse than boredom itself; as argued, the spirit and camaraderie largely suffered.⁶¹ Mæland and Brunstad note that gambling ‘has always been part of military life’,⁶² but as stressed in a case study of an Israeli Army unit in the 1980s: playing cards has normally been associated with ‘bad’ soldiers with low motivation, and the games are understood to divert attention from core responsibilities (soldiers not sleeping enough, thus performing inadequately on patrols, etcetera). Nevertheless, representing a release from the boredom and repetition of daily tasks, card games may for some serve to make military life feel tolerable,⁶³ just as woodwork or matchstick mosaics did.⁶⁴

Service in the middle of nowhere

Here comes yet another cry of distress from a remote and isolated post, seemingly deprived of all chances of amusement…Correspondence to Folke Bernadotte, 28 May 1941.⁶⁵

Remote and isolated posts were indeed a salient and recurring theme in the field reports and their elaborations on the general spirit among soldiers. These posts, it appears, were in urgent need of books, board games, radios, visitors, rotations of staff, etcetera.⁶⁶ Although the chaplains described (and appeared delighted about the fact) that their work was much appreciated in small posts set in remote areas, they also repeatedly pointed out that the isolation and lack of variety constituted a real social and psychological problem. As they noted, people were getting depressed.⁶⁷ For instance, imagine being stationed in an extremely remote and isolated part of Sweden, left with books you have already read, as a field report from June 1943 vividly portrayed:

The post in Styggbäcken extraordinarily dull, in complete isolation, in an inhospitable wasteland….Both commanders and men describe Sundays as unbearably boring. At the air defence warning station in Uppsälje, where several have been stationed for a long time, some even up to two years, it has been complained that the same books return to the field library.⁶⁸

The Swedish border is long, and the border areas, especially in the north, are remote.⁶⁹ Thus, some chaplains wrote of cabin fever,⁷⁰ others of discontent,⁷¹ or lethargy.⁷² Already in 1941, it was noted that due to the monotony of guard duty, the staff at air defence warning stations and the like required extra attention; keeping oneself busy was understood to uphold the troops’ psychological readiness – without activities, they risked facing demoralisation.⁷³ In the beginning of 1943, signs of incipient feelings of fatigue due to years and years of waiting were reported. Those who were deployed in the most isolated wilderness, at the Swedish border, experiencing and enduring extreme remoteness, did not even have time to visit the nearest town during their leave, much less go back home.⁷⁴ Another chaplain pointed out that the slim possibilities to take leave of absence became a real problem for those on guard duty, with many complaining about sleeping problems.⁷⁵

[At the Army Ranger platoons’ border patrols] It often gets rather tedious. I recall a rather disillusioned comment: ‘Ultimately, you get tired of both chatting and reading and wooden spoon manufacturing. You even get tired of yourself. But it works, as long as you don’t get tired of your mates. In that case, you’re in trouble.’ Field report, October 1944.⁷⁶

The chaplain is always welcomed. His activities become a pleasant distraction from the everyday monotony. Field report, summer of 1943.⁷⁷

One report noted that the chaplain’s visit was the only break from the daily humdrum that was offered the soldiers during the whole month;⁷⁸ another chaplain heard the soldiers say that his visits at least offered some form of variation.⁷⁹ Regular visits from the chaplain were thought to ‘break the tedium’, and thus ‘lighten the mood and improve the spirit’.⁸⁰ Despite their need for extra attention, however, the most remote posts were often overlooked in regard to leisure activities and amusement.⁸¹

Our mobilised men indeed take their mission very seriously, even when it means dull guard duty, and nothing happens. Field report, February 1944.⁸²

Generally, the field reports oscillated between depicting military boredom as a problem and a privilege. One report expressed astonishment over the fact that no one complained, despite minimal chances of amusement, and the soldiers having no access even to radio or newspapers.⁸³ It was noted that the soldiers often mentioned Norway – they understood that things could be, or get, much worse.⁸⁴ Thus, although having next to nothing to do, the Swedish soldiers were obviously pleased considering the alternative; no one wished for an attack.⁸⁵ Instead, the military chaplains often reported that the drafted men were ready to do whatever it took to keep Sweden out of war.⁸⁶ Nonetheless, the waiting seemed to spur frustration; time and again, the chaplains reported that the draftees were disappointed by or questioned their prolonged service period,⁸⁷ or even fell into despair when prolongations were announced.⁸⁸ A salient and recurring theme in the chaplains’ reports was also the uneven distribution of call-up orders and the perceived unfairness when some people were drafted repeatedly whereas friends or neighbours at home evaded call-up orders altogether.⁸⁹ In general, beredskapströtthet or beredskapsleda (which could be roughly translated into on guard fatigue or on guard boredom) are words that appear frequently in the reports.

Battling the lack of meaning

To find meaning and purpose in the act of waiting appeared to be a challenge to the Swedish men in arms during the Second World War, despite recurring testimonies of their spirit being good or exceptionally good, and of the drafted soldiers taking their mission seriously. The importance of purpose and a sense of meaning was indeed a salient feature in the field reports. Years and years of waiting for war clearly affected military morale. With time, as ‘nothing’ happened, and things remained calm, drafted soldiers seemed to have difficulty grasping the purpose of their duty and came to question the value of their extended absence from home.⁹⁰ In 1943, one chaplain noted that the unproductiveness and monotony that have came to define these years generated discontent and weariness.⁹¹

Many times, I’ve heard them express more or less the following: ‘Big and strong men like us, we are here doing nothing, just eating and sleeping’. Field report, September 1943.⁹²

In 1944, several reports emphasised the problem of small and isolated posts, dedicated to guard duty. It is not just that these posts were located in remote areas and that life there tended to be slow – the nature of their work was also a great source of frustration. The lack of activity and action, which was most striking at the border patrols or air defence warning stations, clearly generated questions of meaning. One report from October 1944 noted that these patrols are set to do ‘no productive work of any kind’ and that this often triggered feelings of meaninglessness.⁹³ Another report from November 1944 strongly underscored that guard duty in many cases caused depression; who would not suffer from doing three months of service without doing any proper work? As explained, guard duty means that the soldier has to dedicate his time to something completely and utterly unproductive; ‘he does not see any result of his work other than the footprints in the sand or in the snow’.⁹⁴

Both among the officers and the rank and file, the attitude is ‘never before has service during mobilisation been so boring and pointless’. Field report, August 1943.⁹⁵

With reference to Harris and Segal’s discussion on riflemen being most prone to boredom during peacekeeping operations: regardless of expectations, there seems to be a limit to how uneventful the daily routines of soldierly life can be. Perhaps soldiers do not need to be ‘oriented toward action’ to become bored by having next to nothing to observe and report.⁹⁶ ‘Soldiers ask for activity and action, and they ask for meaning and purpose’, Mæland and Brunstad concludes in their chapter on boredom in military history.⁹⁷ Accordingly, the chaplains’ reports here under scrutiny generally give the impression that the Swedish soldiers waiting for war wanted to be of use and do meaningful work, although they never asked for military action as such. In his philosophical essay on boredom, Svendsen makes clear that ‘boredom is not a question of idleness but of meaning’.⁹⁸ Barbalet similarly notes that boredom is intimately linked to an absence of meaning.⁹⁹ Thus, waiting itself does not necessarily generate feelings of boredom, but if the waiting is perceived to be of no use, if it does not appear to serve a higher purpose, it could be a source of deep frustration. As Mæland and Brunstad note in their discussion on Norwegian soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and their sense of meaning: one does not get bored as long as one’s mission or tasks are experienced as meaningful, even with very little to do.¹⁰⁰ A sense of meaning does perhaps not cure feelings of boredom, but makes one endure boredom more easily.

To avert feelings of boredom and discontent, some reports suggested that the soldiers should be briefed about the necessity of their (extended) military service; they should continuously be informed of the current state of affairs and the political motives behind the drafting.¹⁰¹ The reports also generally implied that it was of great value for the soldiers’ morale if they were offered leave of absence to visit their loved ones, or if drafted for shorter periods at a time.¹⁰² The soldiers’ interaction with civilians nearby, or their relation to their civilian duties or family back home, were salient themes in the field reports. In 1942, one chaplain raised concern over the lack of respect and understanding among the civilian population; local civilians often questioned the relevance of air defence warning stations, and soldiers on guard duty were often told ‘nothing happens here anyway’.¹⁰³ This must be discouraging for the drafted soldiers, the chaplain noted, and he wished for the radio and the newspapers to raise people’s awareness.

The question of perceived meaning, and how it relates to morale and the will to fight, is a recurring theme in scholarly discussions on what generates moral power in war and on the battlefield, and recent scholarship has argued that we need to consider more carefully the societal dimension of maintaining soldiers’ motivation.¹⁰⁴ On a similar note, Mæland and Brunstad claim that the boredom felt by soldiers may be reinforced by a perceived lack of interest from back home; it simply enhances feelings of meaninglessness.¹⁰⁵ In the field reports of military chaplains one can sense that the feelings of soldiers indeed were affected by the morale of society at large, or at least were thought to be. The field reports of military chaplains generally testified that purpose and perceived meaning are important for upholding motivation and morale, also beyond the battlefield. Clearly, a sense of purpose and meaning is required to make the act of waiting bearable.

Conclusion

The archive on manpower care during the Second World War bears witness to the fact that the (military) inactivity of Swedish soldiers, who for five years and ten months were deployed to wait for war rather than fight one, was considered a challenge and potential problem for the armed forces. The archive itself, with all its stored artefacts (receipts, letters, accounting reports), as well as the chaplains’ reporting on moral matters, indicate that the maintenance of morale was no marginal issue but a priority. ‘The grey everyday of guard duty’, as one military chaplain put it, in his report,¹⁰⁶ had to be filled with distractions to appear endurable. When the value and purpose of being on guard became increasingly unclear (as no invasion came), card games, matchstick mosaics, dance evenings, playing sports, study circles or services of worship came to serve as meaning-surrogates. At times, the chaplains also expressed concern over the soldiers’ drinking habits, or their extramarital affairs. Boredom, Svendsen notes, ‘is connected to reflection’, and reflection ‘decreases via diversions’.¹⁰⁷ Going through the file boxes of reports, letters and receipts, it becomes evident that it was in the armed forces’ interest to keep the drafted men distracted.

Even still, the Swedish soldiers clearly had time – to think, drink, worry about home, be bored and be grateful. How the military inactivity of Swedish soldiers actually affected the level of morale and motivation, we do not know. Yet, the reports of military chaplains give us an idea of what they considered to be the everyday challenges of isolation, monotony and lack of variation, and what they in turn reported to the armed forces’ headquarters. This particular kind of in-between experience – of finding oneself stuck in limbo between peace and war – is not unique for Swedish soldiers during the Second World War. Whether guarding the Swedish border from an invasion that never seems to come, being stationed in Germany during a Cold War that never turned hot,¹⁰⁸ or serving as a peacekeeper in the Sinai having next to nothing to observe and report,¹⁰⁹ the element of boredom seems to be a common feature. To reflect further on the doings of military boredom – e.g. its role in the collapse of morale, in the identity (re)construction of soldiers, or in the overall enabling of mass violence – we need to explore various kinds of contexts, and different kinds of soldierly experiences, both on and off the battlefield. As this article demonstrates, these experiences – and the passivity and inactivity that indeed define military history, alongside the twists and turns and drama – may be possible to explore also through archival research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by DMF, the Delegation for Military History Research in Sweden [Grant year 2021].

Notes on contributors

Tua Sandman

Tua Sandman is Associate Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Stockholm University. Her research covers the representation of war; war, memory and society; war as experience; and combat motivation. She has previously published in Critical Military Studies, Journal of War & Culture Studies, Crime, Media, Culture, and in the anthology Advanced Land Warfare (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Notes

1 Lars Ericson Wolke, Beredskapsfolket: Krigshot och vardag hos de inkallade krigsåren 1939–1945 (Tallinn: Carlsson bokförlag, 2022), 10.

2 At the most, 350,000 Swedish men were in arms simultaneously, 60,000 at the lowest: Ericson Wolke, 10. In 1940, Sweden had a population of 6,371,432 of whom 3,169,128 were men: Statistiska centralbyrån, Folkräkningen den 31 december 1940: II. Folkmängden efter ålder, kön och civilstånd (Stockholm: Kungl. Boktryckeriet. P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1943), 131. Many drafted men served for two to three years, others for shorter periods; the uneven distribution of call-up orders was a source of great frustration and debate at the time: Lars Ericson Wolke, ‘200 år av lumparliv’, Militär historia 9 (2015), 42–5.

3 Ericson Wolke, Beredskapsfolket, 324–5.

4 Olle Törnbom, ‘Den militära personalvården åren 1939–45’, in Sveriges militära beredskap 1939–1945, ed. Carl-Axel Wangel (Köping: Militärhistoriska Förlaget, 1992), 615–29. The department was later reorganised in July 1941.

5 ‘Rapport över den religiösa och soldatvårdande verksamheten inom II. Milo för tiden 1/9-31/12 1943’, Försvarsstaben, Personalvårdsavdelningen, Serie F VIII, Handlingar ordnade efter ämne: Själavårdsverksamhet (F P/ F VIII), vol. 15, 1944.

6 Morten G. Ender, ‘Boredom: Groundhog Day as Metaphor for Iraq’, in The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, edited by Janice H. Laurence and Michael D. Matthews (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), chapter 22, 311–24, 321.

7 Bård Mæland and Paul Otto Brunstad, Enduring Military Boredom: From 1750 to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2.

8 Peter A. Hancock and Gerald P Krueger, Hours of Boredom, Moments of Terror: Temporal Desynchrony in Military and Security Force Operations (Washington, DC: Center for Technology and National Security Policy National Defence University, 2010), 2.

9 Simon Cottee, ‘Fear, Boredom, and Joy: Sebastian Junger’s Piercing Phenomenology of War’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 34, no. 5 (2011), 439–59; Lorenz Engell, ‘Boredom and War’, in Lorenz Engell, Thinking Through Television (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019); Ilari Taskinen, ‘Social Lives in Letters: Finnish soldiers’ epistolary relationships, intimate practices, and emotionality in World War II’ (PhD diss., Tampere University, 2021).

10 Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 2017 [1960]); Hew Strachan, ‘Training, Morale and Modern War’, Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 2 (2006), 211–27.

11 J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959), 12.

12 Sebastian Junger, War (London: Forth Estate, 2010), 222.

13 Victoria M. Basham, ‘Waiting for war: Soldiering, temporality and the gendered politics of boredom and joy in military spaces’, in Emotions, politics and war, edited by Linda Åhäll, and Thomas Gregory, (Oxford: Routledge, 2015), 128–40; Grace Huxford, ‘“Deterrence can be boring”: boredom, gender, and absence in Britain’s Cold War military’, Critical Military Studies 2022, <https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2022.2110697>; Christine Sylvester, War as Experience: Contributions From International Relations and Feminist Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2013).

14 Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-face Killing in the Twentieth-Century Warfare (New York: Basic Books, 1999); Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land: Combat & Identity in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Thomas Randrup Pedersen, ‘Get real: chasing Danish warrior dreams in the Afghan “sandbox”’, Critical Military Studies, 3, no. 1 (2017), 7–26; Nancy Sherman, The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010).

15 Basham, passim; Ender, passim; Remi M. Hajjar and Morten G. Ender, ‘Boredom, Fragmentation, and the US Army in Eastern Europe’, Journal of Political & Military Sociology 48, no. 2 (2021), 223–54; Amanda Laugesen, ‘Boredom is the Enemy’: The Intellectual and Imaginative Lives of Australian Soldiers in the Great War and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2012).

16 Sexual morality, sobriety, religiousness.

17 Meredith H. Lair, Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

18 Ender, 321. Also consider Arendt’s account of Eichmann’s aversion to the ‘humdrum’ of military service, leading him to apply for service in the S.S.: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Dublin: Penguin Books 2022 [1963]), 33.

19 Mæland and Brunstad, 3; Hancock and Krueger, passim; Liora Sion, ‘“Too Sweet and Innocent for War”? Dutch Peacekeepers and the Use of Violence’, Armed Forces & Society 32, no. 3 (2006), 454–474, 467.

20 Basham, 131.

21 Basham, passim.

22 Anders Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Flat Emotions: Maps and Wargames as Emotional Technologies’, in Visualizing War: Emotions, Technologies, Communities, ed. Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Kathrin Maurer (New York: Routledge, 2018), chapter 4, 59–77.

23 Strachan, 216.

24 Huxford, 5; Mæland and Brunstad, 18.

25 Junger, 222; Randrup Pedersen, ‘Get real’, passim; Jesse J. Harris and David R. Segal, ‘Observations from the Sinai: The Boredom Factor’, Armed Forces & Society 11, no. 2 (1985), 235–248, 242.

26 Anders Malm, ‘Operational Military Violence: A Carthography of Bureaucratic Minds and Practices’ (PhD diss., University of Gothenburg, 2019), 67.

27 Mæland and Brunstad, 19.

28 Engell, passim; Jorg Kustermans and Erik Ringmar, ‘Modernity, boredom and war: a suggestive essay’, Review of International Studies 37, 2011, 1775–92; Laura Salisbury, ‘“Between-Time Stories”: Waiting, War and the Temporalities of Care’, Medical Humanities 46, no. 2 (2020), 96–106.

29 Huxford, 2.

30 Nina Harding, ‘Thwarted Selves: Neoliberal Boredom Among Aotearoa New Zealand Peacekeepers’, Critical Military Studies, 5 November 2022, 1–17, <https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2022.2143676>. Compare to Sion’s discussion of how the pre-deployment training of Dutch peacekeepers generated ‘false expectations’, making peacekeeping and army work appear ‘feminine’: Sion, 455.

31 Harris and Segal, 242.

32 Harris and Segal, 246.

33 Randrup Pedersen, ‘Get real’.

34 Jiří Hutečka, Men under Fire: Motivation, Morale and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–1918 (New York: Berghahn, 2020), 77.

35 Leed notes the transformation of the soldierly type during trench warfare, which was no place for an offensive character: Leed, 111.

36 Hutečka, 77.

37 Linda Åhäll and Thomas Gregory, eds., Emotions, Politics, and War (Oxon: Routledge, 2015); Cottee, passim; Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Kathrin Maurer, eds., Visualizing War: Emotions, Technologies, Communities (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018); Kevin McSorley, ed., War and the Body: Militarisation, practice and experience (Oxon: Routledge, 2013).

38 Ilya Berkovich, Motivation in War: The Experience of Common Soldiers in Old-Regime Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Maya Eichler, Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012); Hutečka, passim; Anthony King, ed., Frontline: Combat and Cohesion in the Twenty-First Century (Croydon: Oxford University Press, 2015); Tua Sandman, ‘The Moral Component of Fighting: Bringing Society Back In’, in Advanced Land Warfare, ed. Mikael Weissmann and Niklas Nilsson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), chapter 10.

39 Captain J.K. Leggett, ‘The Human Factor in Warfare’, Australian Army Journal 183, (August 1964), 24–38.

40 Huxford, 3.

41 ‘Rapport från Uno Allert, pastor vid Dals-Eds skyddso., för tiden den 1/5-31/5 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

42 Klas Hansson, Kyrkan i fält: Fältpräster i det svenska försvaret – Organisation, principer och konflikter i ekumenisk belysning sedan 1900 (Totem: Artos, 2016), 61–2; Törnbom, 619.

43 Hansson, 60.

44 Peter Toohey, Boredom: A Lively History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 154.

45 Ender, 313; Toohey, 8.

46 Eran Dorfman, ‘Everyday Life Between Boredom and Fatigue’, in Boredom Studies Reader: Frameworks and perspectives, ed. Michael E. Gardiner and Julian Jason Haladyn (London: Routledge, 2017), 180–92.

47 J.M. Barbalet, ‘Boredom and Social Meaning’, British Journal of Sociology 50, no. 4 (1999), 631–46; Lars Svendsen, ‘Boredom and the Meaning of Life’, in Boredom Studies Reader, ed. Michael E. Gardiner and Julian Jason Haladyn, 205–15.

48 ‘Rapport över etappastors verksamhet (IV. etgrp) för mars månad 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

49 ‘Fältpost 420 28, Litt.O. Till Chefen för förströelsedetaljen, ink. 17/2 1941’, Försvarsstaben, Personalvårdsavdelningen, Handlingar ordnade efter ämne: Förströelseverksamhet, Serie F, Inkomna skrivelser, vol. 5–6, 1941.

50 E.g. ‘Rapport över fopastors verksamhet inom Norrköpings försvarsområde 1/7-31/8 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Rapport från regpastor I 31 ang själavården vid I 31 jämte underställda förband (Sven Laurell, 20/8 1944)’, F P/F VIII, vol. 16, 1944.

51 ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Helmer Nilsson, Karlstad försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden 1/11-30/11 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

52 ‘Till Fältprosten, Härmed får jag vördsamt inkomma med följande rapport över min verksamhet under 1942 som pastor vid Kustflottan’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

53 For example ‘Redogörelse för fältprästerskapets inom 3. armékåren sjukvårdskurs och konferens i Kristianstad den 27-30 maj 1942’, 3. armékåren, Personalvårdsavdelningen, Serie B Koncept Serie E, Inkomna handlingar (3. A P B/E), vol. 51, 1942.

54 ‘Sammandrag över fältprästerskapets verksamhet inom V. militärområdet under juli-augusti-september 1943 / Grp II’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

55 ‘Rapport över den andliga vården vid ÖSK och KkA 1 juli 1942-30 juni 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

56 Maria Wendt, ‘Gendered Frames of Violence in Military Heritagization: The Case of Swedish Cold War History’, Journal of War & Culture Studies 11, (2021), <https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2021.1902093>.

57 ‘Sammandrag över fältprästerskapets verksamhet inom V. militärområdet under oktober och november 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

58 ‘Rapport från Dalslandsområdet c/o fältpastor Ingmar Hemming, underställd I/I 45. Omfattar tiden 1/11-30/11 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

59 ‘Rapport från fopastor Helmer Nilsson, Karlstads försvarsområdesstab. Rapporten omfattar tiden 1/9-30/9 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 16, 1944.

60 ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Nils Oderstam, Karlstads försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden den 1-29 febr. 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 15, 1944.

61 ‘Sammandrag över fältprästerskapets verksamhet inom V. militärområdet under oktober och november 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Helmer Nilsson, Karlstad försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden 18/10-31/10 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

62 Mæland and Brunstand, 13.

63 Michael Feige and Eyal Ben-Ari, ‘Card Games and an Israeli Army Unit: An Interpretative Case Study’, Armed Forces & Society 17, no. 3 (1991), 429–48.

64 ‘Sammandrag av rapporter om fältprästerskapets verksamhet inom V. militärområdet under 1/7-1/10 resp 16/6-10/10 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 16, 1944.

65 Försvarsstaben, Personalvårdsavdelningen, Handlingar ordnade efter ämne: Förströelseverksamhet, Serie F, vol. 5, 1941. Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg, was at the time head of the leisure activities section at Swedish Defence Headquarters. In 1943, he was appointed the vice chairman of the Swedish Red Cross and became known for organising a number of prisoner exchanges between Nazi Germany and the Allies at the end of the Second World War and for playing a key role in the organisation of the White Buses rescue operations in 1945. After the war, he served as a UN mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Folke Bernadotte was assassinated in 1948 by the Zionist paramilitary group Lehi.

66 ‘Fältpastor F Tyrbjörn med månadsrapport (fältpost 63130, den 4 augusti 1943)’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

67 ‘Marinpastor G. Bodemars arbetsrapport för oktober månad 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943; ‘Rapport från Fältpastor Belin grp I över arbetet 6/8-31/8 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Mora fostab, Avd. III c, Nr 725, Verksamhetsberättelse september månad 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Rapport angående den andliga verksamheten inom Falu fo under november 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945; ‘Regpred E. Isacsson med rapport ang själavårdsverksamheten vid I/I 2 för tiden 8/10-31/10 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

68 ‘Till Chefen for avd SV*, Härmed får jag vördsamt avlägga rapport över tjänsteresa inom Mora fo juni 1943, chefspastor Simon Skoglund’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

69 Those serving along the Swedish border were typically older draftees: Yvonne Hirdman et al., Sveriges historia: 1920–1965 (Varnamo: Norstedts, 2012), 351.

70 ‘Rapport från X. Etgrp, Stabspastor, 1-31 jan 1941’, F P/F VIII, vol. 10, 1941; ‘Sammandrag över fältprästerskapets verksamhet inom V. militärområdet under juli-augusti-september 1943 / Mora fo’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

71 ‘Rapport från Pastor Åström, Fältpost 32510, Avser tiden 8/3-31/3’, F P/F VIII, vol. 12, 1942.

72 ‘Rapport över fältprästernas verksamhet, från 2. Armékåren, för tiden 26/2-31/3 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942; ‘Rapport från Olle Spolén, predikant vid 3 [unreadable] komp., 1/5-1/6 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942; ‘Rapport beträffande den andliga verksamheten vid förband tillhörande Karlstads försvarsområde, gällande maj månad 1943, angiven av fopastor K.E. Bratt’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943; ‘Rapport över tjänsten vid Uppsala fostab avd III c under tiden den 21/9 – 31/10 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

73 ‘Till chefen för själavårdsdetaljen, försvarsstaben, Norra Milo mars 1941’, F P/F VIII, vol. 10, 1941.

74 ‘Fältpastor A. Renström, grupp B, fältpost 42705, med rapport för tiden 8/2-1/3 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

75 ‘Rapport över den andliga och kulturella verksamheten inom Falu fo under februari månad (pastor Helmer Fält, 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

76 ‘Rapport från fopastor H. Nilsson, Karlstads försvarsområdesstab. Rapporten omfattar tiden 1/10-31/10 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

77 ‘Rapport över den religiösa och soldatvårdande verksamheten inom II milo för tiden 1/6-31/8 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

78 ‘Rapport över divisionspastorns i Bofors verksamhet april 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

79 ‘Rapport från Olle Spolén, fältpastor vid VI kfbat, för tiden den 1/7-1/8 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

80 ‘Redogörelse för chefspastor Wallmans besök vid Norrlandskustens marindistrikt den 24/7-26/7 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 12, 1942. See also ‘Rapport över fältpastor Wikströms verksamhet vid II. bevbat I 5 under tiden 20/11-31/12 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945; ‘Rapport över själavårdsverksamheten vid III / I 44 under tiden 25/9-31/10 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945; ‘Till stabschefen, 3. armékåren. Rapport över assistentverksamheten vid Karlshamns fo under juni månad (1942)’, 3. A P B/E, vol. 48, 1942; ‘Till stabschefen, 3. armékåren. Rapport över assistentverksamheten vid Karlshamns fo under september månad (1942)’, 3. A P B/E, vol. 48, 1942.

81 ‘Rapport från Fältpastor Belin grp I över arbetet 6/8-31/8 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Fältpastor A. Renström, grupp B, fältpost 42705, med rapport för tiden 2/3-1/4 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943; ‘Rapport över fopastors verksamhet inom Norrköpings försvarsområde 1/7-31/8 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943; ‘Rapport över foass. inom Strängnäs försvarsområde verksamhet under tiden 16/11-31/12 1940’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943; ‘Rapport från Erik Olsson, tjf fopastor vid Fo 32, för tiden 1/2-28/2 1945’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

82 ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Nils Oderstam, Karlstads försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden den 1-29 febr. 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 15, 1944.

83 ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Helmer Nilsson, Karlstad försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden 1/11-30/11 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

84 ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Helmer Nilsson, Karlstad försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden 18/10-31/10 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943; ‘Rapport från Yngve Holmén, fältpastor vid Uddevalla Fo, för tiden 1/12-31/12 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

85 One claimed that the Swedish soldiers are inherently peaceful in nature; for the Swedes, war appears ‘utterly unthinkable’: ‘Rapport avgiven av fopastor K.E. Bratt beträffande verksamheten under mars 1943 (Karlstad)’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

86 ‘Rapport från Einar Sparrstedt, regementspastor, 1-31 mars 1941’, F P/F VIII, vol. 10, 1941; ‘Rapport ang. själavårdsverksamheten vid grupp IV 1/10-31/10 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943: ‘Rapport från tjf fopastor Nils Oderstam, Karlstads försvarsområde. Rapporten omfattar tiden den 1-29 febr. 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 15, 1944; ‘Rapport över fopastors i Örebro fo verksamhet under juli 1944 (Erik Perers)’, F P/F VIII, vol. 16, 1944.

87 ‘Rapport från Gösta Sävbord och Einar Forsberg, regpastor resp regpredikant I 51., ¼-30/4 1942 – Bilaga till rapport’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942.

88 ‘Rapport från Bat. Pastor David Olsson, fp 31710, 1-20 juni’, F P/F VIII, vol. 10, 1941.

89 For example, vol. 11, 1942; vol. 14, 1943. According to Ericson Wolke, one reason for the perceived unfairness was that the call-up orders were regulated primarily by the military requirements to uphold Sweden’s war preparedness, the urgent situation, and the operative planning of the defence. As the organisation of the defence was confidential, draftees often failed to understand how the system worked: Ericson Wolke, Beredskapsfolket, 146–50. The perceived unfairness was an issue throughout the war, discussed – for instance – in the parliament’s first chamber in 1943: 26 May 1943, ‘Om rättvisare fördelning av beredskapsinkallelserna’, Parliamentary protocol 1943:19.

90 ‘Rapport över fältprästernas verksamhet, fördpastor vid III förd, armékåren III:c, 1/5-31/5 1942, fältpost 23000 7/6 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942.

91 ‘Marinpredikant H. Israelssons rapport om besök å Kbs, Bhs samt Sprrfg. inom MDS. Till chefen för marinen. 26/8 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 13, 1943.

92 ‘Rapport från Karlstads Försvarsområde 1/9-30/9 1943’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

93 ‘Rapport beträffande den andliga verksamheten inom Falu försvarsområde under oktober 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

94 ‘Rapport angående den andliga verksamheten inom Falu fo under november 1944’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945.

95 ‘Till Förd.pastor vid IV förd. (tjänsterapport, fältpost 24923, den 10 augusti 1943)’, F P/F VIII, vol. 14, 1943.

96 Harris and Segal, 242.

97 Mæland and Brunstad, 16.

98 Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom (London: Reaktion, 2005), 34.

99 Barbalet, 631.

100 Mæland and Brunstad, 105.

101 ‘Rapport över fältprästernas verksamhet, från 2. Armékåren, för tiden 26/2-31/3 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942; ‘Rapport från Gösta Sävborg och Einar Forsberg, regpastor resp regpredikant I 51., 1/4-30/4 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942; ‘Rapport över själavårds- och personalvårdsverksamheten inom II. Milo 1/1-28/2 1945’, F P/F VIII, vol. 17, 1945; ‘Rapport från assistenten vid Kalmar fo rörande verksamheten under april månad 1942 (Folke Öberg)’, 3. A P B/E, vol. 48, 1942.

102 ‘Rapport från Algot Erlandsson omfattande verksamheten tiden 1/8-14/8 1944. Befattning: fältpastor vid 25. Etappsjukhuskompaniet’, F P/F VIII, vol. 15, 1944.

103 ‘Rapport från Borås fo, Fopastor, 1/3-31/3 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942.

104 Ilmari Käihkö, ‘Broadening the Perspective on Military Cohesion’, Armed Forces & Society 44, no. 4 (2018), 571–86; Siniša Malešević, The rise of organised brutality: A historical sociology of violence (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Sandman, passim.

105 Mæland and Brunstad, 40–1.

106 ‘Rapport från Borås fo, Fopastor, 1/3-31/3 1942’, F P/F VIII, vol. 11, 1942.

107 Svendsen, 33.

108 Huxford, passim.

109 Harris and Segal, passim.