Okay, so you're saying that the United States and the rebelling states were at war. When did that start?
(Written is still the exception to the rule throughout history, and Vietnam provided several more recent examples of unwritten armistices - which N.Korea violated, at which point we "shelled" them.)
Wait, what? North Korea violated an armistice in Vietnam? When was that?
It's not the correct term anyway, since it implies an existing war.
Ah, so you do read your own posts. But why, then, did you call it an armistice? You're the one who introduced the word in this discussion.