Colonel John M. A. Palmer

Colonel John M.A. Palmer was assigned to the command of the 22nd US Infantry Regiment on June 11, 1920,
and joined June 19. Colonel Palmer had previously been on duty with the general staff of the War Department,
in which capacity he had done a great deal of work with the Senate Committee on Military Affairs,
appearing before that body on several occasions to present the views of the general staff on army reorganization,
particularly those phases bearing on the creation of a Chief of Infantry
and the adoption of a single promotion list for all officers.

On May 5, 1921 Colonel Palmer left the regiment to become Aide de Camp to the General of the Armies,
General John Pershing.

11 November 1921, the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery.
Colonel Palmer is third from the right; at this time he was the Aide-de-Camp to General John Pershing.
General Pershing is center, walking with President Harding.

Born in Carlinville, Illinois, on April 23, 1870, he was the grandson and namesake of John McAuley Palmer,
a famous American Civil War general and Governor of Illinois. He graduated as a 2d lieutenant of infantry
in 1892, and served with the 15th US Infantry at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He participated in the suppression
of the Chicago railroad riots of 1894, then went to Cuba as an aide to General Sumner (1898-1899)
during the Spanish American War. Following Cuba, he became a member of the China Relief Expedition
(1900-1901), then an instructor and assistant professor of chemistry at West Point (1901-1906).

Following this academic stint, he was then assigned a billet as a district governor in the Lanao District
on Mindanao in the Philippines (1906-1908). Upon return from Far East Service, he was a student
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and then assigned to the War Department General Staff under the command
of the then-Army Chief of Staff Major General Leonard Wood (1908-1910). During this period of service
he received recognition as a thinker and writer. In 1910 he rejoined his regiment in Tientsin (Tianjin) China
and was promoted to the permanent rank of major. He was then transferred to the 24th Infantry on Corregidor
and was instrumental in creating the plans for the defense of the Bataan Peninsula (1914-1916).

Following this assignment, he returned to the General Staff in Washington, D.C. (1916) and on the outbreak
of the First World War was instrumental in drafting the Draft Act of 1917 and plans for an
American Expeditionary Force (AEF). This work caught the notice of General John J. Pershing,
who selected Palmer to become his Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, where he went to France and set up
operational plans and staff schools for the American Army. He left the AEF staff due to illness,
but recovered in time, as a colonel, to command the 58th Infantry Brigade of the 29th Division in combat
against the enemy at Verdun in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that helped to end World War I.

As the principal formulator of military policy following World War I, he was the guiding force
in the creation of the National Defense Act of 1920. It was this Act which reaffirmed America's reliance
upon the citizen-soldier for her defense and established the "Total Army" composed of the Regular Army,
the National Guard, and the Army Reserve. For his accomplishments, he was made a special advisor
to General of the Armies John J. Pershing (1921-1923) and promoted to permanent brigadier general
in the Regular Army (1922). He then completed his military career
by commanding a brigade in Panama (1924-1926).

In retirement (1926), General Palmer continued to champion the cause of military service.
He wrote numerous books and articles about military policy. He was recalled to active duty by
Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall (a personal friend and devotee of Palmer's) just prior
to the Pearl Harbor attack and served as an advisor on military policy to the War Department General Staff
throughout World War II. He retired quietly soon after the end of the Second World War
and lived quietly in Washington, D.C. where he died on October 26, 1955.
He is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

A strong advocate of the role of the citizen-soldier in the army of a democracy, Palmer diverged
from the views of Emory Upton, with whom he is often compared as a great philosophical
thinker-philosopher of the U.S. Army.

Brigadier General John M.A. Palmer

Photo taken during the Second World War.

General Palmer was the oldest American
to see military service during that war.

When the war ended in 1945,
he was over 75 years old.