Military career

After graduating, Yudhoyono joined the Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad) and became a platoon commander in the 330th Airborne Battalion. Aside from leading his troops, Yudhoyono was also tasked with giving the battalion soldiers lessons on general knowledge and English. Yudhoyono's proficiency in English was one of the reasons why he was sent to the United States to undertake the Airborne and Ranger Courses at Fort Benning in 1975.
Yudhoyono returned to Indonesia in 1976 where he became a platoon commander in the 305th Battalion and assigned to Indonesian-occupied East Timor. Yudhoyono had several tours of duty there and, like many other Indonesian officers involved in the occupation of East Timor, was accused of committing war crimes. However, Yudhoyono has never been charged with any specific act. From East Timor, Yudhoyono became a mortar platoon commander in 1977, an operations officer for an airborne brigade from 1977 to 1978, and a battalion commander at Kostrad from 1979 to 1981. Yudhoyono then spent 1981 and 1982 working at the Army headquarters.
While working at the Army headquarters, Yudhoyono was sent to the United States again, this time to participate in the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning and in training with the 82nd Airborne Division. Yudhoyono also spent time in Panama and went through the jungle warfare school. When Yudhoyono returned in 1983, he was made Commander of the Infantry Trainers' School. It was not long before he was abroad again, this time to Belgium and West Germany, to undertake the Antitank weapons Course. In 1985, Yudhoyono also took a Battalion Commando Course in Malaysia.
From 1986 to 1988, Yudhoyono served with the Udayana Area Military Command, which covers Bali and the Lesser Sunda Islands. Yudhoyono was a battalion commander from 1986 to 1988 and was part of the operational staff in 1988. In 1989, Yudhoyono became a lecturer at the Army Staff College (Seskoad) and delivered a presentation entitled "ABRI's Professionalism at the Present and in the Future". Together with Agus Wirahadikusumah, Yudhoyono published a book entitled "The Challenges of Development".
Whilst at Seskoad, Yudhoyono also took the opportunity to further his own military education. He went to the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. While in the United States, he took the opportunity to obtain an MA degree in business management from Webster University in 1991.
In 1992, Yudhoyono was transferred to the Army Information Department and worked as a speech writer for General Edi Sudrajat, the Army Chief of Staff. In 1993, when Edi became Commander of the Military of Indonesia (ABRI), Yudhoyono joined Edi's personal staff. Edi did not last long as ABRI Commander and Yudhoyono was then transferred back to Kostrad where he became a brigade commander. A year later, Yudhoyono was the Operations Assistant at Jaya (Jakarta) Military Area Command before taking command IV/Diponegoro Military Area Command in Central Java. Yudhoyono had one more stint overseas when he became Indonesia's chief military observer of the United Nation Peacekeeping Force in Bosnia in 1995–96.^[5]
When Yudhoyono returned to Indonesia, he was made KODAM Jaya chief of staff before being appointed as KODAM II/Sriwijaya commander. In this position, Yudhoyono was responsible for military operations in southern Sumatra.^[6] He served in this position until 1997, when he was appointed chief of staff for social-political affairs. At the same time, he was also appointed Chairman of the ABRI Faction in the People's Consultative Assembly General Session and participated in Suharto's election to a seventh term as President.
During the days which would lead to Suharto's resignation in May 1998, Yudhoyono and pro-reform ABRI officers conducted meetings and discussions with Nurcholish Madjid, a secular pro-reform Muslim leader. From his discussions, Yudhoyono accepted the fact that Suharto should resign but like the ABRI officers who went to the meeting with him, was reluctant to withdraw their support of Suharto publicly, much less ask for Suharto's resignation.^[7] Nevertheless the pressure would eventually become too much for Suharto, who resigned on 21 May 1998.
As Indonesia entered the reform era, ABRI's popularity, because of its association with Suharto, was at an all time low. To de-emphasize ABRI's political role, Yudhoyono's Chief of Staff for social-political affairs was renamed chief of staff for territorial affairs and in 1999, ABRI was renamed TNI and the Indonesian National Police (Polri) was split off. At this time, Yudhoyono's popularity began to increase^{[citation needed]} as he offered ideas and concepts to reform the military and nation. He did this by combining the strong reformist sentiment of the time with TNI's concern for security and stability.^[7] Yudhoyono then became known in the media as "the thinking general"