Battle of Hamburger Hill "chewed up like a hamburger" in grim reference to the Battle of Pork Chop Hill during the Korean War. The battle on Hamburger Hill occurred in May 1969, during Operation Apache Snow, the second part of a three-phased campaign intended to destroy PAVN Base Areas in the remote A Sầu Valley. This campaign was a series of operations intended to do damage to the PAVN forces in the A Sầu Valley, which had been an infiltration route into South Vietnam prior to 1966, when the PAVN seized the Special Forces camp in the valley during the Battle of A Shau
Hamburger Hill during the Battle of la Drang in 1965, had been driven to an emotional breakdown by cruel phone calls from anti-war college students gloating over his son's death. Frantz relates a story on how he volunteered for the airborne. "The only reason I went airborne was Collins," he said. However, when orders came down for a dangerous operation, "Collins" refused to participate. Later, Frantz also has a confrontation with a TV reporter, telling him that he has more respect for the NVA on the hill than for the reporter. The increasingly exhausted platoon continues their attempt to capture Hill 937,