Meet Jeremy Blair

Jeremy Blair joined the military at 23 in search of meaning and purpose.

During his 23-year military career, he served in the infantry and went on five deployments, including Kosovo in 1999; CFS Alert in 2001-2002; and completed three tours in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2007. Despite the heartbreaking outcome in Afghanistan, he was proud to have made a difference in people’s lives.

While in Afghanistan, he came up with the idea of becoming an adventure guide, but he was something that remained an idea, until many years later, when he was selected to participate in True Patriot Love Foundation’s summiting of Mount Vincent – the highest mountain in Antarctica.

The trip changed him in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

“The idea of leaving the army is terrifying. The army is a completely different world. And everybody in that world gets you. So I wasn’t comfortable socializing with civilians at first.

But over time, on the Antarctica expedition, we were all starting to bond – Veterans and civilians. I realized that maybe I was missing the point of the trip. It wasn’t just a physical challenge, but a mental one, too.”

Over the course of the expedition, the doctor on the trip told Jeremy that he might have PTSD, which was an incredible revelation for him.

“The doctor presented the opportunity that what I was dealing with wasn’t something infinite. There was a way to change it, a way to make a difference.”

Jeremy began to think about how he could turn his PTSD into post-traumatic growth. Getting the medical help he needed after the trip made a huge difference in being able to finally focus on his dream of starting a guiding company.

Tim Hodgson, a corporate executive whom Jeremy met on the Antarctica expedition, opened doors for him, and joined some of his first guided trips into the wilderness. Tim helped Jeremy realize that with a bit of shift in mindset, he could lead very successful trips with civilians.

Fast forward till today – Jeremy will be leading True Patriot Love’s Barbeau expedition, meticulously studying the terrain and planning all possible outcomes based on weather and individual needs of the group.

“We’re going somewhere unique. The terrain is going to be incredible. There’s going to be some interesting challenges along the way. We’ll be coming across the confluence of a couple glaciers, and that makes for very complicated terrain. We’re going to have crevices – and some of them are quite large – that we’re going to have to navigate around. On a trip like this, you have to convince people to believe in themselves more so than they normally would. If I can convince them to believe they can do it, it’s that’s one of the joys of expedition.”

As there have been more people to outer space than on Barbeau’s summit, Jeremy is prepared to lead the charge and motivate the team to get to the top.

But even if they don’t make it all the way, he knows from own experience that True Patriot Love’s expeditions help Veterans and civilians grow in ways they would have never done otherwise. Learn more about Jeremy’s Offtrail Odyssey Adventure Guiding.

UPDATE ON BARBEAU EXPEDITION