After finishing middle school, Suharto struggled to find work. He joined the Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) in June of 1940, at the age of 19. World War II was raging, the Nazis had just seized the Netherlands the previous month, and the Japanese were very interested in gaining access to Indonesia's oil fields, so the KNIL was recruiting as many men as it could get.
Suharto underwent a quick round of basic training, then served in the KNIL for almost two years before the Dutch surrendered the East Indies to Japan in March of 1942. Sergeant Suharto took off his KNIL uniform and blended back in to the mass of unemployed youth in the village. When the Japanese began hiring local police for Yogyakarta, Suharto joined.