Editing Idi Amin Dada (section)

===Serving in the Colonial Army===
Amin joined an Islamic school in Bombo in 1941. After a few years, he left 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, joining the King's African Rifles in 1946, serving in Somalia to fight in the Shift War and later in Kenya to fight in the Mau Mau Uprising in 1952.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/28/archives/center-of-an-african-storm-idi-amin.html Center of an African Storm Idi Amin], ''The New York Times''</ref>

Amin would very quickly rise through the ranks in the Colonial Army, attaining the rank of lieutenant in 1961, one of the first Ugandans to hold such a rank. After Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, he received a series of promotions within Uganda's post-colonial army, rising to Commander of the Army in 1965 and being appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces five years later. Amin began building up the Ugandan military by recruiting members of the Kakwa, Lugbara, South Sudanese, and other ethnic groups from the West Nile area bordering South Sudan.