Stanley "Stan" Levy was born in July 1924 on the south side of Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. His family moved around the Chicago area as he grew up. His father was born in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and was the son of a German immigrant. His father joined the Navy in 1917 and served as a meat purchaser for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois]. When he was four years old, Levy became the elder sibling of one brother. He visited his mother in the hospital after she had his brother. The hospital had just served her some food and he ate her toast. His family was the only Jewish family in their neighborhood while growing up. He and his friends often played various sports throughout the year. He did not encounter any anti-Semitic feelings from his neighbors and played with the kids in his neighborhood. He could not go to summer camps with his friends because his family did not have any money. The Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] was hard on the family. Levy discovered he had terrible eyesight at age six and a heart murmur while he was in high school. He was aware of the problem in Germany in the 1930s. He read newspapers to keep up with the news. A cousin of his father's came to live with the Levys while Stanley was in high school. The cousin committed suicide in their apartment because she could not handle the grief of having all her friends and family taken away by the Nazis. Upon graduating high school in June 1941, Levy took a clerical job working at the Armour Company [Annotator's Note: Armour and Company] meat packing plant.

On 7 December 1941, Stanley "Stan" Levy was sitting on the floor of the family home reading the newspaper and listening to the Chicago Bears [Annotator's Note: American professional football team] game when the game was interrupted with the news of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Levy was upset to hear about the bombing but did not rush out to enlist immediately because he enjoyed his job and was making decent money. In February 1942, he was denied entry into the Marine Corps and Navy because of his eyesight and heart murmur. In December of the same year, he joined the Army Air Forces and was sent to basic training in Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] for two months. While there, he scored high on several aptitude tests and was made into a cryptographer [Annotator's Note: cryptology is the study of secret codes]. His job was translating English messages into code and vice versa. While working on rotating eight-hour shifts at a large air base in Orlando, Florida, Levy translated a 2,000-word message each night to be read to the general on base. These messages were sent from The Pentagon [Annotator's Note: the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, located in Washington D.C.] and involved top secret information from all phases of the war. He was not allowed to discuss any information with anyone. After several months in Orlando, he was sent to Miami again where he learned to operate a new coding machine, similar to the German decoding machine. He was then stationed in Puerto Rico, Panama, Guatemala, and Ecuador throughout the war. He did not enjoy his orders in Guatemala because there was a captain that did not like him. Levy was given a jeep to drive around, and one night the captain borrowed his jeep and damaged it. The captain then tried to blame it on Levy and force him to pay for the damages. Levy refused to pay for the damage and thinks that the captain never promoted him for that reason. After a year in Guatemala, he was transferred to Panama and then to Ecuador. The base in Ecuador served to supply all Army forces in the Pacific with money, ammunition, supplies, and bombers. The bombers were there to protect the little surrounding islands from the Japanese Navy. When the war ended, he was sent back to Panama where he served as a typist until January 1946 when he was discharged in Rockford, Illinois with the rank of sergeant.

Stanley "Stan" Levy was a cryptographer [Annotator's Note: cryptology is the study of secret codes]. He received messages to decode every night. Every month he would be given a new eight-hour shift and a new system to decode the messages. He often used different services to reach another base in India or Britain [Annotator's Note: Great Britain]. Men and women were working as cryptographers to decode messages. He was a member of the Army Airways Communications System which employed radio operators, cryptographers, control tower operators, radar operators, and machine operators who handled all ground to ground and ground to air radio communication for the Air Forces. Radar was vital and one of the main reasons why America won the war. Levy does not recall any specific or major messages he decoded, however he recalled learning when the war was about to end. On VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], Levy was in Ecuador celebrating the war's end. He woke up the next morning with an empty bottle of alcohol in his hand in the back seat of a jeep that had crashed into a ditch. Between VE [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] and VJ Days, many infantrymen went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave] upon arrival and escaped into the jungles to avoid deployment to Japan. At the end of the war, the military discharged servicemen based on points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. Levy was nowhere near action, so he only had 50 points, which was low. Most combat men had over 100 points. The Japanese signed the surrender documents on 2 September [Annotator's Note: 2 September 1945]. After returning home, Levy went to school on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and became an optometrist for two years before his own eyesight forced him to abandon that profession. He then became a car salesman and then sold insurance for Nationwide [Annotator's Note: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company] for 25 years until he retired in February 1991. In his retirement, he sold model cars.

Stanley "Stan" Levy's most memorable experience of World War 2 encompasses many things. He enjoyed being in Orlando [Annotator's Note: Orlando, Florida] because he had so much knowledge of the ongoings of the war. He had an aunt and uncle that lived near where he was stationed in Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] and was able to visit them often. He enjoyed playing cards with his uncle. One weekend he was late returning to the base and lost liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] the following week. He served in World War 2 because everyone did, and he wanted to serve too. He bumped into a friend from home while he was at basic training in Miami Beach. The war completely changed Levy's life. Prior to the war, he had no thoughts about his future. He had no money to go to school. After the war, he was given more options for a career. His brother-in-law was a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] in Germany and was very skinny when he returned home. Levy would enlist in the Army again if he had to. He does not know what World War 2 means to America today. There was a general that screwed things up in Italy, but because of his rank he did not receive any consequences. Many of the high-ranking officials were jerks, while others were great. Levy is a patriot and loves this country. His life was easy and lucky after the war because he found a career he enjoyed. After he was discharged, he did nothing for one month. His parents had some good friends that offered him some temporary work. When he reported to work, he met the secretary. Within four months, they married. His wife changed him for the better and gave him a great life [Annotator's Note: Levy begins to search for pictures and shows them to the interviewer.] There should not be any wars. People need to realize that we are all humans, and we should not fight or kill.