The 2012 application is now available for downloading here!  The event will take place on Sunday May 27, 2012 at Woodward Park in Manteca. 

36-year-old Marine Cpl. Charles O. Palmer II  from Manteca was killed in Iraq on May 5, 2007 while conducting combat operations in Anbar province.   Cpl. Palmer had served on active duty from 1990 to 1994 before deciding to re-enlist in 2006, just before his 35th birthday.  Cpl. Palmer was assigned to the 8th Communication Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group.

Cpl. Palmer could never quite get the Marine Corps out of his system and he never found another job "equal to the Marines." That's what he wrote in a letter to the service, explaining why he wanted to reenlist.

"It is home," he wrote in late 2005. Nowhere else had he found such camaraderie, loyalty and comfort.

"The whole time he was out, he had the Marine haircut, the Marine attitude," said his father, Chuck. "He was the Marine's Marine."

Cpl. Palmer's wife, Tanya, said he was the consummate outdoorsman who liked to camp, fish and barbecue. "He wanted to buy a lot of property in South Carolina and start a hunting lodge there for our retirement," she said.  Cpl. Palmer's son was 15 years old at the time of his death.