As the 2017 Department of Defense Warrior Games athletes compete here through July 8, Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jack Sigman said he will enjoy not only competing in shooting the air rifle, archery and riding the hand cycling, but Chicago pizza and a Cubs game on the Fourth of July with his parents.
The DoD Warrior Games are an annual event allowing wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans to compete in Paralympic-style sports.
Sigman, an operations chief at the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy at Quantico, Virginia, has served in the Marine Corps for almost 24 years. His father was a Marine for 30 years, and he said he grew up near Quantico and enlisted from the area.
He served multiple peacetime and combat deployments, but during his combat deployment to Iraq in 2004, he was hit by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.
Leg Amputated
Sigman was medevaced to a combat outpost and flown to Al-Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq, where his leg was amputated above the knee. He was awake from the initial impact of the RPG until the time he arrived at the medical facility. He said it was stressful, but helped with his recovery, because he knew he was going to lose what was left of his leg.
After being flown from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in a medically-induced coma, Sigman woke up to find his leg gone.
“I knew it was already gone, so it wasn’t a shock to the system, so that helped considerably,” he said. “There were days when I wanted to sit there and say, ‘Why did this happen to me?,’ but I realized that doing that wasn’t going to change anything so I could either sit there and be depressed or I could accept it and figure out how I was going to move forward.”
Riding Motorcycles
For Sigman, his love of riding was a big motivator to move forward. He was injured in October 2004 and by May 2005, he had taught himself how to ride a motorcycle again, so that he could ride in Rolling Thunder, an annual event in Washington.About 500,000 motorcyclists ride in the event to underscore the rights and importance of veterans who fought in the nation’s wars, those soldiers missing in action and the prisoners of war who never made it home.
Two years ago, he became a member of the Iron Butt Association, a group of about 60,000 motorcyclists who are dedicated to safe, long-distance motorcycle rides. He said the shortest ride they do is 1,000 miles in 24 hours.
Whether it’s riding with the Rolling Thunder or Iron Butt Association riders, Sigman enjoys riding his pride and joy, a Harley-Davidson Softail, the only motorcycle he’s ever owned. He encourages people to look to others for inspiration and to find what you want to do and not to let anybody tell you no. In 2010, he became certified as a motorcycle instructor.
“I proceeded to teach people and to my knowledge, I’m the only above the knee amputee motorcycle instructor in the country,” he said. “If you have a desire to do it, adversity can be overcome.”