During our
recently ended tenure in Australia, we certainly met our share of
Stan was born
in London. As a youth during the early days of the Second World War, he was
sent north for safety during the Blitz.
He then went to the US, to Philadelphia where he had relatives, as a
student. The war continued; when he
reached the requisite age, he volunteered to serve – in the US Army. Be became an officer, a specialist in motor
transport. He spent the latter days of
the war in the South Pacific, providing logistical support during the time when
US forces were island-hopping their way towards the Japanese Home Islands.
After the war,
he decided to remain in the army. He
eventually served also in Korea during the war there, and retired as a Major at
about the time that the Vietnam War was starting to heat up.
After his
retirement from the US Army, Stan moved to the Gold Coast, in Australia, where
his parents had migrated. He worked as a
civil engineer and pointed with great pride to his role in rebuilding Darwin
after a cyclone had flattened that city in the Northern Territory. After returning to the Gold Coast, he continued
to do civil engineering work but also kept busy by buying, upgrading and
flipping residential properties during times of real estate boom.
By the time
Clara and I met Stan, he was in his late eighties and retired. He was a member of Temple Shalom, and was the
sole surviving charter member in his final years. He never made a big deal about it,
though. He immediately latched onto us
in friendship because of our shared history of service in the US Forces. Although Stan’s health wasn’t the greatest
during the time that I knew him, he tried hard to be active and would
participate – sometimes to great discomfort – in any and every worthwhile
activity.
Stan Lacey had
a kind of delightful, off-beat approach to life. There’s a stereotype of soldiers as being akin
to automatons, but Stan exhibited qualities that were closer to the more common
reality, that of the soldier as being somewhat irreverent, with a lively sense
of humor, and with an independent streak.
Rigid to the principles of unit discipline when the bullets are flying,
yet always open to some way to get around some bothersome regulation at other
times.
Stan was a team
player who would go along with anything reasonable. But if the actors crossed the lines of
ethics, he would never go along – his independent streak would kick right in. He was not one to make a big demonstration,
to make noise and attract attention. But
if someone was doing something that was simply wrong, Stan would distance
himself immediately from that person and what they were doing. If you understood this about Stan, and he was
loyal to you, you knew you were doing the Right Thing.
Probably Stan’s
favorite War Story, very telling about the kind of man Stan was, was about how
a new Colonel arrived at his base and interviewed all his subordinate
officers. Stan was the most junior
Second Lieutenant in the unit. The
Colonel told him unabashedly that he had little love for enlisted men, blacks
and Jews. Stan looked the Colonel in the
ey and told him, “Well, sir…I’m not black but I am Jewish and I was an
enlisted man before I was commissioned.
So that’s two out of three. But
in addition, the troops in my company are all black, and I thinki they’re the
finest soldiers in this man’s army.” The
Colonel looked down his nose at Stan and predicted that, as long as he was on
that base, Second Lieutenant Lacey would never be promoted to First
Lieutenant. Some months later, while the
Colonel was away on an extended absence, a friendly person in the headquarters
company suggested to the acting commander that Lieutenant Lacey was overdue for
promotion to First Lieutenant. The
commander made it so. When the Colonel
returned, Stan was delighted to happen to have some business that took him to
the boss’ office on his first day back…
His lack of
ambiguity in proffering or withholding support is a rare quality, one that I
cherish beyond measure. I would
therefore sit with Stan, listening raptly to his war stories even though I’d
heard them numerous times before, because when you meet someone like him it is
indeed a rare find, one to cherish.
Recently, I
returned to Australia for the High Holy Days thanks largely to Stan’s
sponsorship. Although he lived very
modestly, he was extremely generous to a good cause. He wanted there to be an opportunity for Jews
in the Gold Coast to attend services led by a progressive rabbi during the
all-important days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and he opened his wallet
wide to make it happen.
I can’t fully express
my sorrow: not so much at Stan’s passing
since he went peacefully after a very full and worthwhile life, but because I
wasn’t able to be present for him in his final days. Nevertheless, I take comfort that he was
surrounded by family and friends who surely eased Stan’s way to the World to
Come. I look forward to meeting him
there some day. When he sees me, he will
surely offer a humorous story about how he has managed to flaunt the rules in
Olam Haba!t
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