The Pentagon directed service members last month to stop referring to ongoing U.S. military operations against Iran as “Operation Epic Fury,” according to an Air Force email obtained by CBS News.

The Aug. 7 guidance, first reported Tuesday, instructed senior public affairs officers to use the generic phrase “overseas operations in the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility” instead. The directive came from War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s central public affairs office, led by chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, and reiterated that U.S. Central Command must clear all public statements about the conflict.

A Formal End Date—Finally

Responding to CBS’ questions, the Pentagon said Wednesday that “Operation Epic Fury”—the combat campaign that began Feb. 28 with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes—officially ended May 5, roughly three months before the internal guidance went out. Until this week, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command had for months declined to disclose a formal end date.

The May 5 marker matches the day Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House, “The operation is over. ‘Epic Fury’ is, the president notified Congress, we’re done with that stage of it. We’re now on to this ‘Project Freedom’”—a reference to a defensive maritime mission to protect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Four days earlier, President Donald Trump had notified congressional leaders that hostilities with Iran had “terminated,” addressing the 60-day deadline under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

Casualty Records Shifted

The May 5 date matters beyond nomenclature. CBS reported that four service members killed in mid-July—including three at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base after an Iranian missile strike hit their barracks—were initially logged in the Defense Casualty Analysis System under “Epic Fury” then moved days later to a new “overseas operations” category, technically reducing the “Epic Fury” death toll from 18 to 14.

Parnell attributed the shifts at the time to a “temporary data disruption,” CBS noted. A War Department official told CBS that, since “Epic Fury” has concluded, casualties are now classified as overseas operations within CENTCOM’s area of responsibility.

Even so, CBS reported, the Pentagon’s public casualty database still lists five wounded in June and one killed in July under “Epic Fury” with no end date posted for the operation.

Ongoing Conflict

Trump formally notified Congress on July 7 that military action against Iran had restarted, a designation the administration argues triggers a fresh 60-day War Powers clock. American and Iranian forces have traded fire since, including two rounds of U.S. strikes and Iranian counterattacks this week. The Pentagon did not explain why it waited until August to tell senior leaders to drop the “Epic Fury” label.