When we talk about readiness, we often think about the newest aircraft, the latest, cutting-edge technology, or the next-generation training platform. We think about lethality and speed. But as any soldier will tell you — their readiness doesn’t start when they report for duty. It starts at home, before they ever put on the uniform. The Army is committed to modernizing — but what does that mean for Army families?
For the last five decades, America has relied on its all-volunteer force to keep America safe at home and around the world. As service members have raised their hands to serve, they’ve told us that they can’t stay mission-focused when they’re worried about their families. A parent distracted by childcare challenges, unsafe housing, or an overburdened support system is a parent unable to fully focus on the mission. A soldier with an unsupported family isn’t mission ready.
The Army — and indeed, our nation — has begun to recognize what families have long known: investments in people and infrastructure are investments in more than just readiness. They’re an investment in national defense.
A New Era of Family-Centered Modernization
Across the Army, families are witnessing a growing commitment to upgrading the infrastructure that makes military life possible, including child development centers, housing, health care facilities, and community programs. These were long-viewed as “nice-to-have” amenities; they’re now understood to be the backbone of a resilient force.
Take Fort Liberty’s ongoing housing revitalization initiative, in which targeted investments are transforming outdated and problematic housing into modern, energy-efficient homes that military families want to live in. For decades, military housing has been a hot-button issue for military families — geographically convenient, but often in need of heavy repairs and renovations. On-base housing, once the center of military life, is now home to only 30 percent of military families; the vast majority live off-base in the community. At Fort Liberty, concerted efforts to renovate the housing that’s there and make it desirable for soldiers and families holds the hope of bringing military families back to their community hubs. Historic homes are being upgraded and retrofitted with modern appliances and updated HVAC systems that keep families on base and in community with each other — providing not just better opportunities for on-base housing, but the opportunity for soldiers and their families to share community spaces and neighborhoods with each other.
The Army — and indeed, our nation — has begun to recognize what families have long known: investments in people and infrastructure are investments in more than just readiness. They’re an investment in national defense.
Then there’s the Army’s commitment to strengthening its childcare program. From physical design updates that provide dedicated, age-appropriate spaces in Child Development Centers (CDCs) to policies that ensure that CDC employees can enroll their own children at no charge enabling them to actually consistently get to work and keep staffing levels high, the Army is demonstrating its commitment to helping overcome the shortage of high-quality, affordable, and accessible child care all too many soldiers face. The Army understands — a soldier can’t get to work and stay focused if they don’t know where their kids can be safe while they serve.
In previous generations, childcare was viewed as an individual family problem — and maybe even a problem to be solved by a military spouse. Today’s Army is acknowledging that this family issue is also theirs; after all, there’s no one more important to the soldier than their family.
Military spouses and servicemembers alike need to ensure that the children in their homes are safe, loved, and growing during the workday. Military families, like so many American families, need to be two-income families just to make ends meet. The Army’s commitment to strengthening childcare access for families though competitive pay for CDC staff, fully funding the childcare fee assistance program, and eliminating waiting lists is tangible proof for today’s military families that the Army is listening and is modernizing to help them thrive.
Modernization is also taking shape through the Army’s community resilience program under the broader Ready and Resilient (R2) strategy — a comprehensive initiative to build resilience in soldiers and their families. NMFA has been working directly with families through our Operation Purple program for over 20 years. In our two-plus decades of work directly with military kids and their parents, we’ve learned one thing for sure: resilience isn’t automatic. It’s something military families can learn when the stakes are highest and they have no choice but to learn the hard way, or it can be a skill families are able to cultivate intentionally.
Modernizing Quality of Life for Soldiers and Families
The Army’s commitments to modernizing its force by strengthening its families are decades in the making, and the Service’s actions are supported by the recommendations of the House Armed Services Committee’s Quality of Life Panel for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. The panel’s recommendations focused on five key areas: pay and compensation, childcare, spouse employment, healthcare, and housing. At the heart of all of them was the recognition that when service members aren’t able to provide a good life for their family, they aren’t able to give their all to the military, either.
While the highlight of the committee’s work was reflected in a much-needed pay raise for junior enlisted families, many of the other proposals were solutions NMFA has championed for years and the Army is already implementing, including fully funding the Child Care Fee Assistance program, and ensuring competitive pay for CDC staff.
Even as we celebrate progress, we must remain clear-eyed about the gaps. Infrastructure modernization can’t be a one-time investment — it must be a sustained commitment.
Families Are a Strategic Asset
The Army’s modernization strategy rightly focuses on the future fight on emerging threats and new capabilities to match them. But the biggest risk the Army faces isn’t in failing to adequately plan for those threats — it’s in letting its commitment to modernize quality of life for military families become a sidebar in the greater modernization conversation.
The biggest risk the Army faces isn’t in failing to adequately plan for future threats — it’s in letting its commitment to modernize quality of life for military families become a sidebar in the greater modernization conversation.
Every dollar spent improving a CDC, renovating housing, or upgrading a community program pays dividends in retention, morale, and mission readiness. It tells a family deciding whether to stay in uniform that their service — and their sacrifice — matters. It tells the military kids growing up in their home — already more than half of whom tell us they plan to serve — that the bright futures they envision can happen in the Army.
The most important asset the Army has is its soldier — and the most important thing to that soldier is their family. By ensuring that family programs and quality of life issues don’t get forgotten in the service’s commitment to modernization, the Army stands at the forefront of the military modernization movement and home to the strongest, most mission-focused future force.
Besa Pinchotti is Chief Executive Officer of the National Military Family Association (NMFA), which works with families to identify and solve the unique challenges of military life. Besa was drawn to NMFA’s mission to support the families who serve alongside those in uniform and has held leadership positions at the Association since 2013.