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 he served on the staff of the Supreme War Council, and then the Commission to Negotiate Peace, for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal. In December, 1919 he 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 he 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. In the late 1940s he served on the commission that proposed reforms to America's military and intelligence agencies, including creation of the Department of Defense by merging the War and Navy Departments. General Embick died at Washington, D.C.'s Walter Reed Army Hospital on October 23, 1957, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the father in law of General Albert Coady Wedemeyer.
Citation of first Distinguished Service Medal: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Colonel Stanley D. Embick, United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. As a member of the American Section of the Supreme War Council, by his sound military judgment, qualifications, his breadth of vision, and his sound military judgment, Colonel Embick has rendered invaluable aid in solving the many complex problems that have come before the Supreme War Council. War Department, General Orders No. 69
