A publicity film produced by the US Department of Defence in 1968, this movie tells the story of the Battle of Khe Sanh during the peak of the raging Vietnam War. A force of some 6,000 US Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers engaged in a two month battle against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, which numbered some 20,000 in the first two months of 1968. US military aircraft that served in this battle included F-4 Phantoms, F-100 Super Sabres and F-105 Thuds, which dropped 100,000 tons of bombs on the North Vietnamese, as C-123 Providers and C-130 Hercules transports flew in medivac supplies and food using LAPSE (low altitude parachute extractions). The transport planes also flew out the wounded soldiers, from an exposed airfield that was smack right in the centre of the fierce conflict.

Many military history scholars consider the battle of Khe Sanh as one of the key battles of the Vietnam War. They conclude that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong devised the Khe Sanh conflict as a diversionary strategy to deflect US resources away from their huge Tet Offensive, which also was put in motion during the first part of 1968.