Stanley served our country in the United States Army Air Corp., which later became the United States Air Force. In 1945 when he was seventeen years old, he had his mother sign the enlistment papers for him because he was underage. He retired with 20 years of service in 1965. His military specialty was electronics and when he retired from the Air Force, he moved his family to Houston, Texas to start his own electronics calibration laboratory called Linear Standards Laboratory where they serviced contracts from NASA, among others. He was the husband of Mary Edith (Dart) Spade and the son of Earl Stanley & Ina Daisy (Clark) Spade. He was a 5th great-grandson of Samuel & Elizabeth Clark.