In the wake of Army Master Sgt. Joshua A. Wheeler’s death during a joint hostage-rescue operation in Iraq, military officials are going to great lengths to avoid the use of one word–combat.

The war in Iraq is over according to lawmakers, but 3,500 military members remain deployed in the country. However, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that even though servicemen exchanged gunfire with ISIS militants during an intense operation on Oct. 22, Wheeler and his comrades were not involved in ‘combat.’

“It doesn’t represent us assuming a combat role,” Carter told reporters at the press briefing at the Pentagon. “It represents a continuation of our advise-and-assist mission. We do not have combat formations there, the way we did once upon a time in Iraq.”

Wheeler was the first American to be killed in Iraq since 2011, which is the very same year the Iraq War officially ended. Carter’s carefully chosen word choice is an attempt to distance the war against ISIS and Wheeler’s untimely death from the Iraq War.

Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, head of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve and the commander of U.S. Forced in Iraq, echoed Carter’s statement. “U.S. forces are not in Iraq on a combat mission and do not have ‘boots on the ground,'” he said.

If it looks like combat, sounds like combat and kills like combat, it’s an advise-and-assist mission. This might make sense to Carter and MacFarland, but we’re still scratching our heads.