Idi Amin Kenya to fight against Somali rebels in the Shifta War. In 1952, his brigade was deployed against the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. He was promoted to corporal the same year, then to sergeant in 1953. In 1959, Amin was made "Afande" (warrant officer), the highest rank possible for a black African in the colonial British Army of that time. Amin returned to Uganda the same year and, in 1961, he was promoted to lieutenant, becoming one of the first two Ugandans to become commissioned officers. He was assigned to quell the cattle rustling between Uganda's Karamojong and Kenya's Turkana
Idi Amin school with only a fourth-grade English-language education, and did odd jobs before being recruited to the army by a British colonial army officer. Amin joined the King's African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army in 1946 as an assistant cook. In later life, he falsely claimed he was forced to join the armies during World War II and that he served in the Burma Campaign. He was transferred to Kenya for infantry service as a private in 1947, and served in the 21st KAR infantry battalion in Gilgil, Kenya until 1949. That year, his unit was deployed to northern