Stanley S. Lane, 103; Retired Army Officer Served During Three Wars

Stanley Samuel Lane, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who spent the last few years participating in oral history projects about his service in the United States during World War I, died July 15 of renal failure at a nursing home in Silver Spring, Md. He was 103.

Lane was born Samuel Levine in a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw and raised in New York, where he left school in the eighth grade. Out of a fondness for Zane Grey’s frontier novels, he enlisted in the Army cavalry in 1917.

He lied about his age to enlist and had not told his family about his intentions. When his true age was discovered -- he said he thought it was because his parents informed the American Red Cross -- he refused an offer of a discharge.

His immigration status restricted him from overseas duty until he became a U.S. citizen in 1919.

Lane was one of about 30 living American veterans of World War I, said a Department of Veterans Affairs official who monitors those who served during that conflict.

Lane resigned from service in 1929 to try work as a grocer in New London, Conn., but when the business failed during the Depression, he reenlisted under his legally changed name.

By the time America entered World War II, he had become a commissioned officer in the Quartermaster Corps.

He served in England and participated in the invasion of North Africa.

He also received his high school diploma in 1945 and graduated from the Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.

During the Korean War, he was an instructor and head of the maintenance department at the Army Quartermaster School at Ft. Lee, Va.

After retiring, he was a patent engineer for a company in Cleveland and a part-time federal programs officer for the city board of education. He settled in Silver Spring in 1993.

Survivors include a son, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.