Capt. Stephen Burley attended the Marine Military Academby in Harlingen, Tex. and then graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1977. He was designated as a Naval Aviator and was deployed to Okinawa, when he died in a helicopter accident while serving as pilot-in-command. The crash of the CH-53D chopper took the lives of 29 US and South Koran Marines and occurred during a nighttime exercise. The mission had been scrubbed due to rain and high winds, and the crash occurred as the helicopter was attempting to return to a base in Pohang, South Korea.