Memorial

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T/Sgt Stanford C. Parisian attended Walter French High School and graduated from Central High School. He also attended Antioch College for one year and worked part time for The Sun in Springfield, Ohio and for the Detroit News.

He joined the U.S. Army Reserve at Fort Custer, Michigan on 20 April 1943 and was enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Program at Providence College. He was sent overseas on 1 September 1944.

He was killed by small arms fire to the chest.

He was first buried at the Temporary American Military Cemetery in Grand-Failly, France.

The U.S. Army Reserve Armory in Lansing, Michigan was named after him in 1960. The name of the facility later changes to U.S. Army Reserve Center. In 2011 it was decided will no longer be a military installation.

The following is an extract from the Lansing State Journal: The Army Reserve armory, Marshall St. and E. Grand River Ave. will be dedicated here Saturday. It will be named after Staff Sgt. Stanford Carlisle Parisian, Lansing soldier who was only 21 when killed in action in Luxembourg in World War II. The armory is being dedicated in a military ceremony as a salute to Parisian's gallantry and service record during European combat. Wilbur M. Brucker, secretary of the army and former Michigan governor, will speak at the dedication service, beginning at 10 A.M. Much will be made of Parisian's military record which included the receipt of a Silver Star for gallantry in action in clearing a path for his men through a mine field protecting an enemy pillbox containing mortars and machine guns. But what type of young man was this 21 year old who left Antioch College in Ohio in 1942 to enlist in the Army on December 10th, 1942? The latter question, particularly, would be difficult to answer. His nature, according to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. S. Parisian of Grand Ledge, certainly was not of killing, even though he eventually led his squad under sniper fire, to the rear of the pillbox, destroying it and killing all occupants with bazooka fire and rifle grenades and continued to capture six enemy prisoners from nearby areas. His parents, who after nearly 16 years, still find it difficult to believe their son was killed, recall that as a young man "Stanford wouldn't kill anything." "He believed that all things living had a right to live," his parents say. "The last time I saw Stanford alive I asked him how he felt about killing another men if he should go into combat," his father said. "My son replied that 'I don't like it but I suppose that in war it is either kill or be killed.