Cpt. Burnham was a navigator assigned to the 366th Fighter Wing based at DaNang Air base in Vietnam. While on a mission on April 20, 1972 along the Ho Chi Minh trail, Captain Burnham and his Pilot Major Thomas H. Amos were shot down.both were killed when their F-4 plunged into a Laotian forest near the Ho Chi Minh trail. They were flying a night escort mission with an AC-130 gunship when they abruptly ceased radio contact. Witnesses saw a fireball but no parachutes.In 1989, two Vietnamese looking for incense wood came upon the wreckage in a remote part of Quang-Nam, Da Nang province. The US Air Force interviewed the pair four years later and began recovery efforts at the crash site in 1994. The difficult terrain made recovery work slow. The discovery of unexploded ordinance caused authorities to halt the search in June 1998. By then, however searchers had recovered enough bone fragments and other items to positively identify the two.The mens dog tags were also recovered and Cpt. Burnhams tags were returned to his daughter, Kim Heddinger,of Eugene Oregon. She has worn them almost everyday since, because he had worn them next to his heart when he was killed. Captain Burnham was a 1961 Graduate of Roseburg High School, Roseburg,Oregon