North Valley teacher back from Iraq

BACK HOME: Janell Word is glad to be stateside once again after serving a year with the Army in Iraq.

Army Command Sergeant Major Janell Word returned home on Saturday, March 13, after being stationed in Iraq for a year.

Word was part of the 393rd Criminal Investigation Division or military police, which is a forensic battalion. Her unit oversaw four Joint Expeditionary Forensic Labs in Iraq. She was stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad.

According to Word, she could tell her friends and family back home about some of the things she was doing, but not everything because most of it was classified.

Word said her unit was in charge of Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE) training. She said they trained several hundred soldiers on how to collect evidence to be used to get a prosecution in the Iraq Criminal Courts. The classes taught proper collection procedures like how to lift fingerprints or gather DNA on weapons caches found in the desert and how to look for proof of life for soldiers who are missing in action, so they know whether or not they are dead.

Word said one of her most memorable experience in Iraq was the weather and the crazy dust storms. She said the sky would be clear and then five minutes later there would be a dust storm.

Word has served in the Army for more than 31 years. She started teaching at North Valley in 1997 and is currently a history teacher.

Travel is one of her favorite activities in the Army. She once visited Djibouti, Africa, and went on a Safari tour.

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