The Korean Was was a “conflict” or “police action”, correct? And, Viet Nam was called a ____ ? Thanks, Jinx
[ul]**BIG MISTAKE **
[sup]If this was the Pit I would have said F*** Up[/sup][/ul]
Well, personally I call 'em all “wars” (World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, etc.) However, in this section from the U.S. Code (dealing with definitions of terms relating to veterans), the terms used include “Spanish-American War”, “World War I”, and “World War II”, but “Korean conflict” (as well as “Philippine Insurrection”, “Boxer Rebellion” and “Mexican border period”); the Vietnam War is officially refered to as the “Vietnam era”. However, the Persian Gulf War–Congressionally authorized, but not formally declared the way World War II was–is officially referred as the “Persian Gulf War”. Go figure. (All capitalization of terms in quotation marks in the preceding paragraph is exactly as I found it.)
This official U.S. Army history site, in listing the campaigns fought by the U.S. Army, uses the terms “Revolutionary War”, “War of 1812”, “Mexican War”, “Civil War”, “Indian Wars”, “War with Spain” (why not “Spanish-American War” I don’t know), “China Relief Expedition”, “Phillipine Insurrection”, “Mexican Expedition”, “World War I”, “World War II” (with three sub-sections, “American Theater”, “Asiatic-Pacific Theater”, “European-African-Middle Eastern Theater”), “Korean War” (not “conflict”), and…just plain “Vietnam”. This page from the same site adds sections for “Armed Forces Expeditions”, “Southwest Asia” (i.e., the Persian Gulf War, plus at least some of the continuing low-level hostilities with Iraq since then), and “Kosovo”. (Nothing for Somalia or Afghanistan, at least not yet.)
So, anyway, to get back to the actual question…I’d just call it the Vietnam War (which usage the Encyclopedia Britannica agrees with); officially, it may be referred to as the “Vietnam era” or even just “Vietnam”. (I think that “Vietnam era” may also include some people who did not actually serve in Vietnam, or anywhere in Southeast Asia.)