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Cory L. Palmer
May 13th, 2009
Cory L. Palmer, a 2002 graduate of Seaford High School, Cory Palmer was on the varsity soccer team during his senior year. Before that, head coach Tim Lee said he had seen Cory Palmer around school and perceived him as an "ornery and mischievous guy."
After Cory Palmer joined the Marines, Ralph Palmer said, his parents hung a Marine flag next to "Old Glory" at their house each day. He said his family is struggling to deal with the loss.
Palmer was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, Ralph Palmer said, and had been there for five weeks when he was injured. His first tour lasted seven months. Ralph Palmer said his nephew never talked much about the war but was proud to be a Marine.
"He was always positive and wasn’t hesitant to go to war either time," Ralph Palmer said. "He felt he was doing the right thing."
Palmer, a member of the 2nd Recon Battalion, A Company 1st Platoon, was injured when the Humvee he was in was hit with an explosive near Fallujah about 9:20 p.m., Baghdad time, on May 1, 2006, according to his aunt, Montine Willin.
When Marine officials contacted the injured soldier’s parents, Charles and Danna Palmer, on May 2, 2006, they said that the 21-year-old would be taken to a hospital in Germany. They were later told he would be taken to a hospital in San Antonio, and the Marines arranged their travel, said Ralph Palmer.
After the plane he was on left Germany, Palmer experienced complications from his injuries, Ralph Palmer said, which forced an emergency landing in Nova Scotia, Canada. As Charles and Danna Palmer anxiously waited in San Antonio for their son to land, they were given the news that he had died on the way.
"It was just his time to go, I guess," Ralph Palmer said.
Palmer is one of 2,415 soldiers killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Of those, 2,276 have been killed since President Bush announced the end of combat operations in April 2003.
Still, he didn’t expect the worst. "Every day after the accident, I hoped that everything would be all right," he said.
As the news spread Sunday and Monday, residents across Seaford and Delaware joined him in mourning.
All flags in the Sussex County community will fly at half-staff until after Palmer’s funeral, officials announced Monday evening.
"Anyone who’s willing to give their life for their country deserves this honor," said Seaford Mayor Edward H. Butler Jr.
Corporal Palmer was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
“You are in the presence of an American hero,” said Lieutenant Richard Ryan, a Navy chaplain. “I saw people walking all around the neighborhood (Sunday). As I got closer to the church I realized what was going on — Marine Corps flags everywhere, American flags everywhere. They were here for you guys.”
An honorary Marine pallbearer stood at attention next to the casket, draped with an American flag, during the ceremony.
Marine Captain Matthew Welch awarded the Purple Heart to the Palmer family. Hundreds of people, many with flags or visual signs of patriotism, jammed the streets to witness the 21-gun salute and taps, part of military honors held outside between the church and the Seaford fire hall.
“Your son did not die in vain,” said Lieutenant Ryan. “He died attempting to keep America and the world free from terror.”
To accommodate the huge funeral crowd, closed-circuit viewing was available in the St. John’s second-floor parish and the Seaford Volunteer Fire Hall.
At the start of the ceremony, some wept openly as a photo montage traced Corporal Palmer’s life from infancy, through boyhood and teenage years to adulthood as a U.S. Marine.
Injured May 1, 2006, Corporal Palmer died four days before his 22nd birthday.
“My first reaction was to wonder how a family, an extended family, a community could cope with such a terrible tragedy, such unspeakable loss,” said the Rev. Boyd Etter of St. John’s UMC. “As we began to share together over these past couple of weeks, it became that the answer is to be found in faith.”
The Rev. Etter said Cory was a person others couldn’t help but love.
