Dr. Stanley Jaffe was born in Cleveland, Ohio in February 1925. He grew up in Cleveland and did his college work there. He had started at Case Western Reserve University [Annotator's Note: in Cleveland, Ohio] when he was 18. He became a member the first year of ASTP, the Army Specialized Training Program. Unfortunately, they never became officers. When they entered, they were immediately shipped to Camp Barkeley, Texas [Annotator's Note: in Abilene Texas] for basic training. Jaffe was sent to Denver, Colorado [Annotator's Note: Fitzsimons General Hospital] and became a surgical technician. He would eventually achieve a grade of T-5 [Annotator's Note: US Army Technician Fifth Grade or T5; equivilent to a corporal; E-4]. At that time, the hospital was particularly for tuberculosis [Annotator's Note: bacterial disease of lungs]. He first got excited about medicine there. After a year, he was sent overseas to Great Britain to Chester [Annotator's Note: Chester, England], near London [Annotator's Note: London, England]. He was assigned to the 178th General Hospital. Before that, in Rheims, France he was picked to go into a unit with doctors and nurses. He went with them to Chamonix [Annotator's Note: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France] in the Swiss Alps [Annotator's Note: Alps mountain range, France, Italy, and Switzerland]. They got there about two weeks after Von Ribbentrop [Annotator's Note: Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany; executed at Nuremberg, Germany on 10 October 1946] left. They stayed at the Majestic Hotel [Annotator's Note: Hotel Majestic in Paris, France]. There were still some Germans there. Jaffe had a 24 hour course in how to ski in Army boots. The Germans were taking potshots at them and they were superb skiers. They did have a couple of injuries from them. After about six weeks, the Germans left. Jaffe and his group went up to Rheims, France then returned to the 178th General Hospital. He remained there as a surgical technician until the end of his service. He had joined on 31 August 1943 and remained until 30 March 1946. In Rheims, Jaffe performed as a surgical technician. They got a lot of wounded soldiers from the French campaigns. They did a lot of medicine and that made him excited to become a doctor. He returned to Cleveland. His father died. Jaffe went to school partially on a scholarship and partly on the Army program [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill]. He went to Chicago Medical School [Annotator's Note: in North Chicago, Illinois] and spent four years there. He returned to Cleveland and started a practice in plastic surgery at University Hospitals [Annotator's Note: a care center with multiple satellite sites] at Case Western Reserve University. He got married and has three children.

Dr. Stanley Jaffe has one sister and no brothers in his family. His father was a storekeeper. He owned a liquor store in Cleveland [Annotator's Note: Cleveland, Ohio] that was pretty successful. His father got a stomach ulcer and was operated on. One hour after surgery, he died. That was an unhappy period. His sister is now dead, as are his parents. His mother was a "go getter". She was involved in the store and was a bartender. She opened the store in the morning and came home at night. They had a reasonable way of life. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jaffe where he was and what was he doing when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Jaffe was still in college. He went in service in August 1943. He was drafted and went with a whole group from college through the ASTP program [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program]. He was in the program for about a year. He thought they would go to officer candidate school [Annotator's Note: OCS], but they did not. All that was needed were troops. [Annotator's Note: There is a background chime for a few minutes.]

Dr. Stanley Jaffe's basic training at Camp Barkeley, Texas [Annotator's Note: in Abilene, Texas] was straightforward. It was very hot. They did a lot of walking. He was transferred up to Denver, Colorado [Annotator's Note: Fitzsimons Army Hospital; now Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Colorado] where he received most of his training as a surgical technician. Many of the patients came in from overseas. He then got really interested in medicine. He stayed there until going overseas. He entered the service on 31 August 1943 and went to Chester [Annotator's Note: Chester, England]. He went to a small unit that when to Chamonix [Annotator's Note: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France], and then joined the 178th Hospital [Annotator's Note: 178th General Hospital] in Rheims, France. He was there until March 1946. He took his surgical tech training at Fitzsimons General Hospital which was originally a tuberculosis hospital. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jaffe how he felt when he learned he was not going to become an officer.] He was not a happy camper, but he had no choice. Jaffe thinks that he realized how important it was to help people who had injuries. He learned a lot about injuries, and about death and what the poor soldiers were dealing with. That stimulated him to learn more about the field.

Dr. Stanley Jaffe got seasick going overseas. He ended up with another group of people down in the bottom hold of the ship. Their sleeping accommodations were in a net hooked to the ceiling. He thinks he vomited night and day for the first week. He would go up and get fresh air. The trip was stormy, and that ship did a lot of rocking. It was not fun. They ended up in Chester, England. The people were very nice and that started a nice time in the service. They formed as an outfit after leaving Chester. He was part of a mobile surgical team [Annotator's Note: from the 178th General Hospital]. The head of his unit was a great surgeon named Bill McCloud [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. He was inspiring and was effective in Jaffe's pursuit of medicine. It was not a great time for what they did. Jaffe's first combat casualty was in Chamonix [Annotator's Note: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France]. They had some bad wounds that came in. Jaffe went out in the field with his unit. He used to see the German soldiers skiing and could not believe how good they were. Jaffe would mainly hand the physician the surgical instruments and do the work that a scrub nurse does. The scrub nurse is the first assistant to the doctor at the surgical table and is just under the surgical technician. The service was very efficient in doing this with these units. A number of the units had their own casualties. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jaffe to compare his military and postwar medical experiences.] As a surgical tech, he was in a subordinate position and would sometimes run into bad surgeons. It gave him a nice aspect of how good some surgeons could be and how bad others are. It gave him good insight into what he wanted out of medicine.

Dr. Stanley Jaffe had a lot of fun as a bachelor [Annotator's Note: while serving on a mobile surgical team with the 178th General Hospital based in Rheims, France]. They had great nurses and he was not hesitant in that respect. He enjoyed it. Some surgeons were excellent and that was what made him become a surgeon later. He trained in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. He came back to University Hospitals [Annotator's Note: at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio] in Cleveland [Annotator's Note: Cleveland, Ohio] and spent 37 years there. He initially was a general surgeon and then branched off into plastic surgery. He got interested in reconstructive work for hands. He got his training in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for two years. He then returned to Cleveland and went into practice. His experience with combat injuries got him interested in plastic surgery. He went for reconstruction and that was a major part of his field most of his time. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jaffe what his most memorable experiences of being in combat are.] One was fear. When they went to some of the places, there was a lot of fear of being shot or ending up in Germany [Annotator's Note: as a prisoner of war]. It was a nasty time in the war. Fortunately, he never got involved in combat and no one in his group was hurt seriously. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Jaffe recalls hearing that the war in Europe was over.] It was not very exciting. He ended up in Rheims, France as a surgical technician in a hospital [Annotator's Note: as occupation duty after the war ended]. There is a big cathedral there and that is what that city was all about. The hospital was fairly large. People from the town got treated too and he learned a little French. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer and Jaffe discuss speaking the Cajun French language and its differences within Louisiana.] Cajun French is similar to regular French. Southern Louisiana service members were often used as translators overseas. French is such a good language compared to German and the Slavic languages. Poland took a terrible beating. Jaffe did some reading on it. They were beaten up by the Germans and also by the Russians. They are finally a separate country.

Dr. Stanley Jaffe does not recall hearing about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] being dropped or much about the Japanese surrender [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. He remembers a sense of elation at that time. He returned to the United States in March 1946. He had been in Rheims [Annotator's Note: Rheims, France] from October 1944 to March 1946 when he was discharged. He kept in touch with Dr. McCloud [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] for some time. He did not sign up for any Reserve time. He finished college, went to medical school, then surgical residency, plastic residency [Annotator's Note: plastic surgery residency], and a lot of training. He was a "damn good" surgeon. He used the G.I. Bill and if not for that, he would never have been able to afford to go to medical school. He paid his dues though. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer feels that the G.I. Bill created the middle class in America and Jaffe agrees.] Jaffe got so involved with education, that it occupied his whole time. He did not have trouble with transitioning to civilian life like others who did not go back to schooling. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer notes that it is a popular misconception that most of the servicemen put the war behind them when they got home.] Jaffe agrees that is far from the truth. Post traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: PTSD] existed then too. In Jaffe's field, hand surgery, some of the great hand surgeons were involved with the war. It was never a separate entity before that. It became a specialty. Guys like Bunnell [Annotator's Note: Sterling Bunnell, MD] and a whole host of surgeons who had been in service, started the specialty.

Dr. Stanley Jaffe's single most memorable experience of World War 2 was leaving Chamonix [Annotator's Note: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France] and going to Rheims [Annotator's Note: Rheims, France]. It was not a pleasant experience [Annotator's Note: in Chamonix]. He was elated to get into a place of safety. He did work on a couple of wounded Germans in Chamonix. Von Ribbentrop [Annotator's Note: Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany; executed at Nuremberg, Germany on 10 October 1946] had stayed at the hotel where Jaffe and his unit [Annotator's Note: Jaffe was part of a mobile surgical team assigned to the 178th General Hospital] stayed at. There were swastikas all over and it was scary. Jaffe's motivation to serve was that he was drafted. The war made him respect living and being alive, after seeing some of the disasters he saw and what happened to a lot of soldiers. He saw a lot of bad. He did not have troubles with nightmare or post traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: PTSD]. There were a number of times when he would awaken in the night and think about times in the service but it never got out of hand. He thought about some good and some bad. He stayed in touch with a couple of the people he served with, but it was not long lasting. Jaffe was taught to accept responsibility. He went in as an 18 year old enjoying life and screwing around. It matured him and that is best thing he got out of it. The one thing the war left us, was getting rid of the German regime. It was awful to our way of life. The number of people they killed was terrible. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] caused a lot of death. Unfortunately, there are some remnants left like a fair amount of anti-Semitism. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer and Jaffe discuss families and diversities within them as helping people learn acceptance of others.] Jaffe thinks it is wonderful. Jaffe mentions a great exhibit shared about the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] at his retirement community. He thinks it is absolutely necessary for the Museum to exist and to teach about the war. So many of the results are so positive [Annotator's Note: of the war being fought and won].