[1][2][3] Following his Cuba service, he became a member of the China Relief Expedition, after which he became an instructor and assistant professor of chemistry at West Point.

Following this academic stint, he was then assigned a billet as governor of Lanao District on Mindanao in the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion.

[4] Upon return from Far East Service, he was a student at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

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.

[11]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.

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.

[15] 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.