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In pursuit of al-Qaida

Oct- 4-2007 » Filed Under: 4/2 SBCT

By Mary Madewell, The Paris News

A Paris native deployed in Iraq heads a squadron charged with ridding one of the world’s “Cradles of Civilization” of al-Qaida insurgents and assisting Iraqis with regional security and reconstruction.

Lt. Col. Marshall Dougherty of the U.S. Army commands the 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, deployed with the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division near Khan Bani Sa’ad, Iraq.

He is the son of the late Dr. Marshall K. Dougherty and Barrillion Dougherty of Paris and the brother of Mike Dougherty of Blossom.

Stationed in Fort Lewis, Wash., Dougherty and his squadron of about 600 men were deployed in April as part of a surge to send more troops to Iraq.

“We have been quite active and quite successful,” Dougherty said about his location in a fertile valley that includes both the Tigris and Diyala rivers near Daquvah, the capital of the Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad.

The area is a part of one of five valleys in the world that scholars cite as possible sites of the “Cradle of Civilization” — the Tigris-Euphrates in modern day Iraq, the Nile in Africa, the Indus in South Asia, and the Huang-He-Yangtze in China.

History relates that these fertile river locations prompted nomadic people to form agrarian communities. Inhabitants built cities, created writing systems, learned to make pottery and use metals, domesticated animals and created complex social structures.

“We are responsible for an area 35 miles long and 12 miles wide,” Dougherty said in a telephone interview earlier in the week. “You think of Iraq as all desert, but our area between these two rivers is actually quite lush with an extensive canal irrigation system in existence over 1,000 years.

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