Times of War

In order to develop a fair and consistent definition of what constitutes a “time of war,” we relied on two fundamental sources or information. The first source was simply generally accepted definitions of the dates of all the wars from World War I back to the French and Indian Wars. The second source was the list of New Jersey War Dates published in the New Jersey Veterans Guide by the State of New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The guide is not dated or serialized, but the edition available on-line on 21 April 2010 begins with World War II and is updated from time to time as necessary.

Based on these two sources, we have established the following dates for the various “times of war” throughout our nation’s history:

The French and Indian Wars: ………………………. 28 May 1754 – 10 February 1763
The American Revolution: …………………………. 19 April 1775 – 3 September 1783
The War of 1812: …………………………………… 18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815
The Mexican American War: ……………..………… 9 May 1846 – 2 February 1848
The Civil War: ……………………………………… 12 April 1861 – 9 April 1865
The Spanish-American War: ……………………….. 15 February 1898 – 12 August 1898
World War I: …………………..…………………… 6 April 1917 – 11 November 1918
World War II: ………………………………………. 16 September 1940 – 31 December 1946
The Korean Conflict: ……………………………….. 23 June 1950 – 31 January 1955
The Lebanon Crisis: ………………………………… 1 July 1958 – 1 November 1958
The Vietnam Conflict: ……………………………… 31 December 1960 – 7 May 1975
The Lebanon Peacekeeping Mission: ………………. 26 September 1982 – 1 December 1987
The Grenada Peacekeeping Mission: ………………. 23 October 1983 – 21 November 1983
The Panama Peacekeeping Mission: ……………….. 20 December 1989 – 31 January 1990
Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm: ………… 2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991
Operation Restore Hope (Somalia): ………………… 5 December 1992 – 31 March 1994
Operation Restore (Uphold) Democracy (Haiti): …… 19 September 1994 – 31 March 1995
Operation Joint Endeavor and Joint Guard
(Bosnia and Herzegovina): …………………. 20 November 1995 – 20 June 1998
Operation Southern Watch (Iraq): ………………….. 26 August 1992 – 19 March 2003
Operation Northern Watch (Iraq): ………………….. 1 January 1997 – 17 March 2003
Operation Enduring Freedom: ……………………… 11 September 2001 – present
Operation Iraqi Freedom: …………………………… 19 March 2003 – 31 August 2010
Operation New Dawn: ……………………………… 1 September 2010 – present

Due to the proximity in time of many recent operations and peacekeeping missions, a number of current veterans have served in several of these events. In order to minimize the multiple listing of those whose service overlaps several operations and peacekeeping missions, the following events are combined into single listings on the Memorial:

Listing 1) The Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama Peacekeeping Missions
Listing 2) Operations Restore Hope (Somalia), Operation Restore (Uphold) Democracy (Haiti), and Joint Endeavor and Joint Guard (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Listing 3) Operations Southern and Northern Watch, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn