Stan Hanna was born in 1948 in Chicago, IL. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in history and minoring in English, he served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1972 He received a Master of Arts degree in history from Loyola University in 1974, after which he worked in the Social Security Administration from 1975 until his retirement in 1996. He spent his retirement translating official history volumes of the First World War from German into English and researching military unit histories. He passed away on September 24, 2009.