While on Duty in Kuwait during the Iraq War, US Marine Corey McKay, 21, received an emergency phone call from Child Protective Services back in his home town of Bellevue Washington. His wife, long dissatisfied in their marriage, had had a breakdown. After neglecting their infant daughter Kaylee for weeks she had thrown the baby’s clothes out the window and flushed her formula down the toilet.

McKay rushed home and with no one else to care for his 3 month old daughter he was given a hardship discharge from the Marines. But with no job, no savings plus the burden of caring for his mother who was suffering from a brain tumor McKay soon ran out of resources and became homeless. By methodically levering the available help McKay went from a family shelter to transitional housing and now is in permanent subsidized housing. He is caring for his daughter, attending college as a business major and has a stable relationship with a woman he met in the homeless shelter.