Durham Reporter

Jeremy Fisher planned a three-week trip to Ukraine to provide humanitarian aid to those fleeing the war-torn country.

His trip has turned into a five-month adventure with no date on when he’ll walk away from it.

"This is a completely independent mission that we're on to try and protect human lives and save innocent people,” Fisher, a retired Air Force sergeant who calls Durham home, told ABC 11 News.

Fisher is so committed to the cause — which goes by the name the Dark Horse Allies — that he sold his house and his business in the Triangle to help fund the mission.

At first, Fisher, and his team of other former U.S. service members, focused on training new Ukrainian soldiers, putting them through a four-week regimen.

“We are training a little bit of everybody,” he said, according to ABC 11 News.

The classes were made up of men and women who, before Russia invaded, were working ordinary jobs in coffee shops, schools or in transportation.

"It would be fantastic if they had more opportunity to learn,” Fisher told ABC 11 News. “But that being said, there's something to be said for when you're fighting for a purpose. These people are hungry. They soak up the information like sponges. We're teaching them basically to have confidence, and that is a game changer. When you go into war unsure of yourself and (terrified) of the unknown, your actions replicate that. When you go in confident believing that you know what to do and that your teammates know what they're going to do and that you have each other's back, it changes the entire way that you fight. We're seeing very favorable results from it." 

Today, Fisher and his colleagues aren't limiting their training to soldiers. They are also teaching combat medical care to civilians in hopes of increasing the survival rate when ordinary citizens suffer wounds from the fallout of Russian mortar attacks. 

The Ukrainian military has protected its homeland valiantly, with recent successes, as they are reclaiming territories the Russian military had occupied earlier in the conflict.

"I'm extremely proud,” Fisher said of the Ukraine people. “I won't use the word 'surprised' at all. I'm extremely proud. These guys are incredible. One of the things that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin did not see coming is that an army that is fighting only because they hate what's in front of them is going to get defeated every single time by a fighting force that's fighting because they love what's behind them." 

Donations for Fisher's group are being accepted at Dark Horse Allies.