LILONGWE, Malawi — A contingent of Ugandan and American military officials — and a handful of journalists — will board a plane on Tuesday in the Ugandan city of Entebbe for an approximately two-and-a-half-hour flight.

Destination: the remote town of Obo, in the southeastern part of Central African Republic, where they will take part in a ceremony organized by Uganda to mark the end of the mission to capture or kill Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or L.R.A.

Mr. Kony was, of course, never captured or killed.

The United States spent almost $800 million on the effort since 2011, when President Barack Obama deployed Special Operations forces to the region to provide advisory support, intelligence and logistical assistance to African Union soldiers fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army. Officials from the countries involved say they have significantly degraded the L.R.A., diminishing it to around 100 people today from a fighting force of 3,000. Now, they say, it’s time to go home.

Still, when Ugandan officials informed their American counterparts that they wanted to have a ceremony to celebrate the end of the mission, some Defense Department officials at the Pentagon, mindful of “mission accomplished” ceremonies that can come back to bite celebrants, were wary. But the Ugandans were insistent, defense officials said, and the Americans offered up Brig. Gen. Kenneth H. Moore, the deputy commanding general of United States Army Africa, along with the American ambassador to the Central African Republic, Jeffrey Hawkins, to carry the flag.