injured, killed, and awarded high honors. Two women received the Silver Star: Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester in 2005 and Army Specialist Monica Lin Brown in 2007 for their actions in combat. Over 10,000 combat action badges were awarded to women who served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. on February 2023, A series of new policies were published by the US Defense Department in order to support military members. Anyone who receives an abortion could travel out of state and three weeks of administrative leave. Physical, social, and cultural issues A 2015 Marine Corps study found that women in a unit created to assess female combat performance were significantly injured twice as often as men, less accurate with infantry weapons and not as good at removing wounded troops from the battlefield. The study assessed a nine-month experiment at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Twentynine Palms, California. About 400 Marines, including 100 women, volunteered to participate. Male squads, teams, and crews demonstrated better performance on 93 of 134 tasks evaluated (69 percent) than units with women in them. Male units were faster while completing tactical movements in combat situations, especially in units with large "crew-served" weapons such as heavy machine guns and mortars. Male infantry squads had better accuracy than squads with women in them, with "a notable difference between genders for every individual weapons system" used by infantry rifleman units. The M4 carbine, M27 infantry automatic rifle and M203 single-shot grenade launcher were assessed. Male Marines who had not received infantry training were more accurate than women who had. In removing wounded troops from the battlefield, "notable differences in execution times were found between all-male and gender-integrated groups". Unit cohesion was lower in mixed-gender units. Many female soldiers reported that the way that they are viewed by male soldiers is often detrimental to their participation. For instance, female soldiers are often labelled as "either standoffish or a slut". In order to avoid such labels, female soldiers have to spend time with fellow soldiers strategically, without spending too much time with any one of them. This approach often has an isolating effect. In several instances, women were considered less skilled than male soldiers, so were not given opportunities to complete tasks for which they were qualified. According to Lieutenant colonel Dave Grossman, author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Israeli soldiers reacted with