Kayla Corbitt — a military spouse based in Colorado Springs and the founder and CEO of Operation Childcare Project — describes the childcare crisis that pushed her into advocacy.

After returning from a posting in Italy with a newborn, she spent a year researching military childcare programs before enrolling her child at a center listed on the branch's own website, using the military fee assistance reimbursement program. Months in, she was told the center didn't qualify and that she should have verified it beforehand — a requirement documented nowhere she could find.

The family depleted their savings on childcare deposits, she turned down the job she'd lined up, and they ultimately burned through her husband's GI Bill to access the housing allowance and cover care. When she raised the problem with the branch, she was told she was a one-off; when she asked for data supporting that, none existed. Talking to other families proved otherwise, and she founded Operation Childcare Project to collect the missing data, document what families are actually doing to cope, and publicly challenge the gap between how military childcare is portrayed and how it works in practice.