Joseph G. Forgue Jr. is a special investigator at the minimum security unit of the Adult Correctional Institutions, in Cranston. A typical day can find him sitting in his car watching inmates on work release who are suspected of getting narcotics from friends, investigating the smuggling of drugs into the prison or tracking down an inmate who walked away from a litter crew.

But in the last 18 years, many days have also included assignments that have taken him far from the ACI. Since 1990, Forgue has served four tours of duty overseas with the Rhode Island National Guard, including three tours of Iraq.

Forgue served in the original Iraq conflict from 1990 to 1991, in Bosnia from 2000 to 2001, and two more tours of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the second just ending in June. On that last tour, he served with four others who work at the ACI. In all, the Department of Corrections has seven employees on active duty in Iraq and 66 employees in the military — the most of any state agency — according to records from the state.

“Many of the qualities we see in people with military service make them effective correctional officers,” says A.T. Wall, director of the Department of Corrections. “Some of the qualities that make an effective correctional officer include a sense of pride in their work, good judgment, and commitment to the mission of the organization.”

While Forgue says his military service has made him better at his ACI job, his training as an investigator, including training in evidence collection at the State Crime Lab at the University of Rhode Island, helped prepare him for his 2003 tour of Iraq. On the 16-month tour, Forgue served as an investigator on a team looking for mass graves from the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, collecting evidence for future war crimes tribunals.

Forgue, who was with 119th Military Police out of Warwick and then transferred to the 10th Military Police Battalion, also worked with an Iraqi Survey Group assigned to protect a lieutenant general who was searching for weapons of mass destruction. The greatest danger during the tour was indirect fire, he says. Mortar attacks were a constant.

Despite retiring from the Guard in 2004, he was lured back and served with the 169th Military Police training Iraqi police in techniques better suited to a democratic society. He says it was a “backseat job,” training the Iraqis and patrolling with them in western Anbar province, from Ramadi to the Jordan and Syrian borders.

“The experience and training you receive on a deployment is something you can’t put a price on,” says Forgue, adding emotionally, “The immediate decisions you have to make, the type of decision-making, relates back to your job here in law enforcement in being a leader and a motivator.”

After returning in June, Forgue won’t be going back to Iraq. His 9-year-old son “made me pinky promise that I wouldn’t leave again,” he says. “When you return, you have a much fonder appreciation for family.”