Stanley, 82, who was born on a farm in Missouri, said there were young soldiers at the ceremony on Memorial Day who kept shaking his hand and saying thank you. He says he told them, "It's your turn now."

As a draftee in the Army, Stanley learned Morse code and how to make receiving and sending radios. He passed the stringent character requirements to become a cadet in the Army Air Corps and eventually served as a radio operator gunner aboard a B-17 bomber for the 8th Air Force. The nine members of his crew were together through training and then in England, and from there, they flew some 34 missions over Germany, France and N. Africa.

Stanley recalls anti-aircraft guns shooting at them, and once, after returning from one of the missions, he noticed a small hole in his pant leg. After also seeing that a bullet had shot right through the radio section of the plan, he knew how close he came to catching a bullet. He talks matter of factly about it now, but there were many close calls, like the two times he discovered members of his crew blacking out from lack of oxygen in time to save them.

When Stanley was in Washington, he looked for the names of his crew on a community pegboard set up so surviving WWII soldiers could find each other. But none of their names were there. He has since found out that he is one of only two of his crew members still living.

Stanley says that at the ceremony in Washington there were bands from every branch of the military. "You could feel a spirit of gratitude in the air," he says. "People were so appreciative."

"I'm happy I survived the war and that I lived long enough to see the memorial."

He also survived long enough to be interviewed as part of the oral history of WWII, and he says his interview will be kept with others in the Library of Congress.