Soon after Monnie was born in Paris, Tennessee, his father, a tailor, moved the family to Memphis, where Monnie spent most of his early years. The elder Burnette then moved the family to Shreveport where he tailored for Rosenblath Clothing Store. Monnie graduated from Fair Park High School in 1939. That summer he attended Citizens Military Training Camp at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. He was working for Morris Dixon Company, a wholesale drug business, when he was drafted on October 14, 1941. At Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps for three years. Sent to Barksdale Field as a B-24 mechanic, he later qualified for pilot training. While in flight school he married Bobbie Wilson on July 5, 1943 in Shreveport. He was stationed in the Pacific at Port Moresby, New Guinea with the 400^th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group. He flew missions in the Admiralty Islands, and later operated out of Nadzab, New Guinea, from which he bombed targets such as Wewak and Hollandia. On Hollandia, he recalls, they "caught three hundred Jap plans on the ground." He moved on to Wadke, just off the New Guinea coast, and then to Biak, another island off New Guinea. In the spring of 1944 he returned to America after completing sixty-five missions, and "well over six hundred combat hours." He was sent to Tindell Field near Panama City, Florida, where he trained student co-pilots and Chinese waist gunners in B-24s. Monnie left the service on May 30, 1945, and then joined a reserve unit for 10 years. He received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. He worked as a buyer in the wholesale drug business and as a sales manager for all of Louisiana. He retired in 1982. Later he and Bobbie ran an antiques business, specializing in vintage postcards.