Cedars of Lebanon

For years when Stanley’s kids asked him, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” he didn’t say much. He told them he blew up tanks. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. It just wasn’t the whole truth. Staff Sergeant Stanley Nance was a member of 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, also known as the Ghost Army; until fairly recently, one of the U.S. forces’ most closely guarded secrets. The Ghost Army is credited with shortening World War II by at least six months, and with saving tens of thousands of lives. And they did it all without firing a single bullet. They used truckloads of inflatable tanks (imagine bouncy castles with turrets and treads), huge speakers and other forms of theatrical trickery to fool the enemy into thinking the Allies were closer and more numerous than they really were. 101-year-old Stanley is one of just a handful of men still alive to tell the secret he guarded for so long.