While considerations of the impact of science and the military often focuses on weaponry, social science has also contributed to the lives of the warriors themselves. Here, Leanne Knobloch and Steven Wilson outline four specific contributions on this Veterans’ Day.

How much – or how little – do genes contribute to the decision to enter the military? A lot, according to the first effort to pin down an answer to that question. One of the researchers answers questions about the study.

UPDATE: In a 2014 article, a former U.S. surgeon general and four co-authors argue that the U.S. military’s medically based ban on transgender troops in place then failed on the facts and on the precedents of other populations in uniform.