Embick was born in
Greencastle, Franklin County, Pennsylvania on January 22, 1877. He attended
Dickinson College before enrolling at the
United States Military Academy in
West Point, New York, from which he graduated in 1899. Commissioned a
second lieutenant of
Artillery, he served in the occupation of Cuba following the
Spanish–American War. After his service in Cuba, he served in a variety of assignments, including the staff of the Coast Artillery School at
Fort Monroe, Virginia and Assistant to the Chief of Artillery in Washington, D.C. During
World War I Embick served on the staff of the Supreme War Council, and then the commission to Negotiate Peace, for which he received the
Army Distinguished Service Medal. The citation for the medal reads: at
Versailles, France, May 1918. Colonel Stanley D. Embick is stood in the second row, first on the left. In December 1919 Embick was assigned to the staff of the War Department's War Plans Division, where he served until attending the
Army War College. After serving as a War College instructor, Embick served in the Philippines, afterwards returning to Washington to serve as Executive Officer of the War Plans Division. In 1930 he became commandant of the Coast Artillery School. In 1932 Embick was appointed commander of harbor defenses in the Philippines as a
brigadier general, where he was responsible for constructing Corregidor's Malinta Tunnel, which was used as a bomb-proof storage and personnel bunker and hospital during
World War II, and is now the venue for a historical audio-visual presentation about the war. Embick became Director of the War Plans Division as a
major general in 1936, and later that year was named the Army's
Deputy Chief of Staff. He was appointed IV Corps commander in 1938, and later the same year took command of the Third Army as a lieutenant general, where he served until his 1941 retirement. Embick was recalled for World War II, serving as Chief of the
Joint Strategic Survey Committee, Chairman of the
Inter-American Defense Board, and a delegate to the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference that created the
United Nations. He retired again in 1946, receiving a second Distinguished Service Medal. ==Later life==