After the Belgian Revolution, Boers was mobilised for the Ten Days' Campaign, becoming second lieutenant with the Second Battalion of the First Division of the South Holland schutterij. In 1842, Boers sailed to the Dutch East Indies to join the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. The journal he kept during his journey from Hellevoetsluis to Batavia was posthumously published by a relative. Boers retired from the Dutch East Indies Army as a colonel.