The family emigrated to Australia in 1966 and settled in the South Australian city of Whyalla, where Stanley was educated at the local high school.
[3] He abandoned teaching to assume a position at the Australian War Memorial in 1980, and returned to ANU to complete a Bachelor of Letters (1984) and a Doctor of Philosophy (1993).
His writing expresses his concern to integrate operational and social approaches within military history and relates in one way or another to the theme of human experience in extreme situations.
His historical ventures also include leading the Memorial's Borneo battlefield tour, 1997; Commentator, ABC television broadcast of Anzac Day march, Sydney, 1998–2001; Historical advisor, television series Australians at War (Beyond Productions, 1999–2001); Commentator, Anzac Day national ceremony, Canberra, 2002–06; Leader, Australian War Memorial-Imperial War Museum Joint Study Tour to Crete and Egypt, Sep 2002; Presenter, Revealing Gallipoli, December Films, Apr 2005; Participant, National Summit on History Education, Canberra, Aug 2006; Commentator, ABC television broadcast national ceremony Anzac Day, Canberra, 2007–10.
In his work at the National Museum of Australia Stanley wrote a book about the effects of the 2009 bushfires on a small rural community in Victoria, Black Saturday at Steels Creek (published in 2013 by Scribe Publications).
Stanley published Lost Boys of Anzac with NewSouth in 2014, and Die in battle: Do not Despair: Indians on Gallipoli, 1915 with Helion (UK) in 2015.
In 2001, Stanley criticised the ABC Television mini-series Changi, claiming that the program was an in-accurate and misleading portrayal of the Second World War POW camp in Singapore.