In this episode, we hear from Jared Lenahan, a US Navy Veteran. He was a combat medic for the Marine Corps known as a Fleet Marine Force Corpsman. After an accident overseas in 2014, he found himself going from climber to paraclimber.

He used adaptive climbing as an integral part of his recovery and has competed as a US Paraclimbing Team Athlete for four years. Jared is also an ambassador for both the National Ability Center and Move United (a Warfighter ambassador for MU). Because the outdoor adaptive community has been so critical to his personal recovery, he started a program to help other wounded warriors get reintegrated into community through adaptive climbing.

This program called “Climbable” introduces warriors to the adaptive sports community before they lose their military community and shows them a streamlined path to transition from recovery to the rest of their lives.

In this interview, Jared and I talk about disability identity, imposter syndrome, addiction, and how climbing as a through-line in his life has guided his life decisions — especially the decision to start Climbable. We recorded this conversation in early 2024 with Jared hoping to officially launch the program by the summer of 2024.