Battle of Hamburger Hill military significance aside from the presence of the PAVN on it, Major General John M. Wright who replaced MG Zais as commander of the 101st Airborne in May abandoned the hill on 5 June as the operations in the valley wrapped up. The debate over Hamburger Hill reached the United States Congress, with particularly severe criticism of military leadership by Senators Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, and Stephen M. Young. In its 27 June issue, Life Magazine published the photographs of 241 Americans killed in one week in Vietnam; this is now considered a watershed event of negative public opinion toward
Battle of Hamburger Hill its highest peak are a series of ridges and fingers, one of the largest extending southeast to a height of , another reaching south to a peak. The entire mountain is a rugged wilderness blanketed in double- and triple-canopy jungle, dense thickets of bamboo, and waist-high elephant grass. Local Degar tribesmen called it Ap Bia "the mountain of the crouching beast". Official histories of the engagement refer to it as Hill 937 after the elevation displayed on U.S. Army maps, but the American soldiers who fought there dubbed it "Hamburger Hill", suggesting that those who fought on the hill were