The Meat Grinder: Why They Called It "Hamburger Hill" In the history of the Vietnam War, few names carry as much grim weight as . Officially known to the military as Hill 937 and to the local Degar people as Dong Ap Bia ("the mountain of the crouching beast"), this 3,000-foot-tall peak in the A Shau Valley became a symbol of both extraordinary valor and tactical futility. Origins of a Brutal Nickname
Sergeant James Spears famously asked a reporter, "Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces".
Soldiers dubbed it "Hamburger Hill" because they felt they were being "ground up like hamburger meat" by intense, accurate machine-gun fire and entrenched NVA positions.
A cardboard sign pinned to a tree by a soldier after the battle simply read: "Hamburger Hill. Was it worth it?". A Battle of Attrition
The objective was part of , intended to clear North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces from the valley.
