Marshall Burnett was born in Meridian, Mississippi in November 1925. He attended Marion Park Elementary School, Kate Griffin Junior High School, and Meridian High School. As a child, Burnett remembers roller-skating and bicycling all over Meridian with his friends. In the wintertime they would stop by gas stations, warm up their bodies, and head back out to continue riding around town. His father was a Methodist minister who also ran a grocery store. As a young boy, Burnett worked in his father's store stocking shelves and sweeping the floor. As he got a little older, he helped his cousin on a newspaper route before establishing his own route. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945], his family had to watch their pennies. Burnett heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Notes: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] while his family was on their way home from church. The newsflash came across the radio. His entire family became somewhat apprehensive about what the future might hold. He says the skies changed color and it felt like doomsday. During his high school years, Bennett joined the Boy Scouts [Annotator's Note: Boy Scouts of America, scouting and youth organization founded in 1910] and the Emergency Service Corps [Annotator's Note: part of the Boy Scouts program]. He prepared for eventual military service abroad and even prepared to defend the home front from a possible invasion. People of all ages, races, backgrounds, and religions bonded together in a concentrated sense of unity. His focus on the war was on whatever side someone had a friend or relative fighting on. Burnett had an uncle in the Marine Corps who drove an LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] in the Pacific Theater. Burnett enlisted in the Army on 10 June 1943. Within 30 days of graduating high school, all the boys in his class had volunteered for military service. Because he could not swim, Burnett chose to join the Army.

After Marshall Burnett's induction at Camp Shelby [Annotator's Notes: Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi], he boarded a train to basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia. Burnett could feel a collective sense of excitement and apprehension. At Fort Benning, Burnett became proficient with the M1 Garand rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and the .30 caliber M1919 Browning machine gun. He was classified as a sharpshooter. This filled him with an inner sense of fright as he had seen in movies that enemy fire was always trained on the machine gun nest. These fears never came to pass as Burnett was chosen for the Signal Corps. He was then sent to Camp Pickett, Virginia [Annotator's Note: now Fort Pickett, near Blackstone, Virginia] for further training. After learning various telephone related operations, Burnett was sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey to be trained as a cable splicer, which was to be his job overseas. Aboard a train bound for California en route to the Pacific, Burnett procured a detailed railroad map of the United States which he used to track his unit's [Annotator's Note: 23rd Signal Heavy Construction Battalion] progress. He stuffed the map inside the lining of his helmet one day before leaving the train for lunch. Upon returning to his train car, he found that the map was no longer there. Burnett assumes that the map was confiscated as a matter of censorship so that the exact movement of his unit would not somehow fall into the wrong hands. Later in the journey, Burnett remembers being parallel to another passenger train filled with combat veterans of the South Pacific. He says the veterans leaned all the way out of the windows and warned, "You'll be sorry!" This made him and his fellow soldiers especially nervous for what lay ahead. They soon boarded the USS General LeRoy Eltinge (AP-154) in Los Angeles [Annotator's Notes: Los Angeles, California]. Before sailing out [Annotator's Note: on 23 March 1945], fierce storms made many of the men aboard awfully sick, though he himself never suffered from seasickness. While crossing the Pacific, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the ship was crossing the equator. Burnett says that a large group of guys ran to the side of the ship looking to see if they could spot the equator. Some guys would crawl through the air conditioning ducts into a storeroom that they would raid for canned fruit and bring back to the guys in their bunks. He was assigned to kitchen duty and learned to use a dishwasher.

Upon docking in Melbourne, Australia, Marshall Burnett, and his shipmates got the news that President Franklin D. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had died [Annotator's Note: on 12 April 1945]. Burnett was shocked and surprised. He thought to himself that they should all just turn around and go home because he was not sure anyone would be able to step in and match the job that Roosevelt had done in war time. Soon after, they sailed to Calcutta, India [Annotator's Note: Kolkata, India], boarded trains for the Burmese border and never heard any more about the political situation caused by Roosevelt's death. At his first camp along the Stilwell Road, or Ledo Road [Annotator's Note: overland connection between India and China] in Burma [Annotator's Note: now Myanmar], some guys got together and played hillbilly mountain music. They were able to broadcast the music over the radio waves. [Annotator's Notes: At 0:38:50.00 the video and sound go out of synch.] After some time clearing brush from power lines and erecting new lines, Burnett contracted typhus [Annotator's Note: also known as typhus fever, a group of infectious diseases]. He does not know how long he was hospitalized for and only remembers very little from his time spent there. He does remember a fellow soldier beside him dying one night. The soldier also had typhus, this caused Burnett much apprehension.

After Marshall Burnett was released from the hospital where he had been recovering from typhus [Annotator's Note: also known as typhus fever, a group of infectious diseases], he was assigned to light duty. He drove a Jeep, operated a switchboard, and instructed an Indian work crew. The Indian laborers were known as Pioneers [Annotator's Note: Indian Army Pioneer Corps]. It was his duty to instruct them while clearing brush and debris from the rights of way along telephone lines. He admired the workers greatly. One day they took him back to their camp to meet their colonel. The colonel respected Burnett greatly for the respect with which he treated the workers. They became acquainted and joined each other for tea on several occasions. He was placed on emergency furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and sent home to see his dying mother. Burnett heard about VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] over the radio in camp one evening. He began to wonder when the Japanese would surrender, if they ever would. Some guys in the outfit from Pennsylvania adopted the saying, "Penn State by '48." Burnett was relieved the war did not last that long.

Marshall Burnett does not remember much excitement on the occasion of VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], just a sense of relief and a hope that he would be going home soon. When Burnett arrived in Burma [Annotator's Notes: now Myanmar], Burnett and his fellow soldiers worried that some Japanese soldiers that had not been captured would stage a last minute attack on their unit [Annotator's Note: 23rd Signal Heavy Construction Battalion], but this fear proved to be unfounded. He saw a lot of monkeys during his time there. Upon leaving an encampment, Burnett and his men were instructed to toss everything that they no longer needed into a hole and burn it. A great explosion occurred when they lit the pile causing a local tribe of Naga headhunters [Annotator's Note: various ethnic groups native to northeastern India and northwestern Myanmar], to gather to see what the commotion was all about. Having never been given weapons or ammunition, Burnett was apprehensive about their presence, but they never attacked. He was put on a plane at Chabua Airfield [Annotator's Notes: now Chabua Air Force Station, Indian Air Force, Assam, India] and flew all the way back to New York City [Annotator's Notes: New York, New York], stopping in many cities across the world. Along the way he remembers seeing the Taj Mahal [Annotator's Note: marble mausoleum on the Yamuna river in Agra, India], and Bethlehem, Jerusalem from the window of the plane.

Marshall Burnett boarded a train at Grand Central Station [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] bound for Meridian, Mississippi [Annotator's Note: Burnett had been given permission to return home from Burma, presnt day Myanmar, to visit his dying mother]. Burnett's father met him at the train station and asked him if he would like to drive. [Annotator's Notes: There is a glitch in the video at 1:18:24.000.] Burnett hopped in. Used to driving on the left side of the road in Burma, Burnett nearly crashed on the way to the hospital. He was able to see his mother for ten days before she died. Burnett was placed on a 30 day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] before reporting to Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: near Hattiesburg, Mississippi] for deactivation on 13 March 1946. Burnett took advantage of the G.I. Bill and attended college at Mississippi College in Clinton [Annotator's Notes: Clinton, Mississippi] before graduating with a Bachelor of Science from Millsaps College in Jackson [Annotator's Notes: Jackson, Mississippi] in 1949.

Marshalls Burnett's most memorable experiences are learning about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], leaving home for the unknown, the trauma of losing his mother after coming home early to see her, and growing up in the military. He joined the military because he wanted to do his part and it was his duty. He believes that World War 2 made him a man and taught him responsibilities. He is grateful to have returned home because many of his friends did not or came home wounded. Burnett believes that it is important for institutions like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] to exist, as the war is an irrevocable part of our history that some now take for granted. He is grateful to the museum for allowing him to be a part of what, he feels, is a noble effort.