82801 May/June 2018

MAY / JUNE 2018

Young dancers shine at First Peoples’

Pow Wow

SUMMERTIME

2018 FESTIVALS & EVENTS

YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS

The Essential Sheridan Summer

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IT’S NOT JUST NEWS. IT’S DALLY. MAY / JUNE 2018

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82801 Features

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Community: The Essential Sheridan Summer It is time for barbeques, bicycles, and kiddie pools. The mountains begin to beckon, calling Sheridan into the summer. Kevin answers...

With a summer to-do list to die for.

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Life: On the Blood of My Brother

Ag: A Burning Tradition

Letter from the Editor

Were four U.S. soldiers sacrificed for peace in Vietnam?

Barron 52 went down in the jungles of Laos in 1973, its crew declared KIA. Family members question that designation and John Matejov fights for change. A passionate, but not unreasonable request.

Amongst controversy and emerging technology, the enduring and beloved hot-iron brand plays a critical role in modern cow-calf operations.

This month, Bailey presents a challenge to all travelers: a challenge to expand the possibilities of your adventure on the road, making it memorable.

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Letter from the Editor rowing up in Wyoming, you have to drive to get just about anywhere. One side of my family lives mostly in Colorado, the other side lives mainly in Montana. Hence why my parents settled in Wyoming; among other factors, it was conveniently between both states. Since most of my early memories revolve around family holidays, I feel like I kinda grew up in the car.

I love road trips. I can sit there listening to music or just the whir of the engine. Watching the scenery change from one reality to another.

Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño Ávalos once said, “Every hundred feet the world changes”, and oh how that rings true with me. Every hundred feet brings a new opportunity: a friend to make, an adventure to go on, love to find, and new truths to learn about yourself and the world.

In fact, the next time you take a road trip, I challenge you to do exactly those things:

Make a friend: Nothing makes the world go round like humans being kind to one another. If you pause your trip at a rest stop, be the person who makes small talk. Ask someone where they’re headed, and if they feel comfortable sharing why they’re headed there, then listen... really listen. Maybe you run into someone who is traveling across the country to find themselves.

Maybe you run into someone in the same field as you; music, engineering, teaching, tradesmen and women, festival-goers. You can make a friend, have a new business contact, or — for just a brief moment — have someone you can relate to.

Go on an adventure: While obviously the road trip is an adventure in itself, there are always opportunities to further explore the path you take. Driving down the road, we often glaze

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right over those “Point of Interest” signs along the highway. But don’t! Those POIs are attractions that visitors may be interested in for great views and to learn the history of the area. Allocate an extra hour or so into your trip, and stop at the next POI you pass.

Find love: Do not ask each person you pass on a date — that’s not what I’m saying. Find love for the earth, walk on it, enjoy its flowers and trees. Drive up to a camping spot and just take in your surroundings. Or, find love for yourself.

Self-love is such a rarity these days… I wish for you all to come to a place where you can be completely comfortable with who you are, and unafraid to become who you truly want to be.

We should accept ourselves, but always strive to be better, to improve.

Learn something new about yourself or the world: We learn something new everyday right?

Don’t take that for granted. I challenge you to strive to learn that new something every day. Not all lessons come in passing, sometimes you have to seek knowledge for it to have an impact.

Not much else can provide the chance to be reborn like getting out into the wide open.

Especially where we live! Getting out on the road gives you that ‘wide open spaces’ feeling: the one that helps you get away from circumstantial influences, that gives you a chance to sort out your thoughts in air clear of motivators, so that all that’s there is you, your will, your wants. I do my best thinking in the car... What about you?

Bailey I. Knopp, Editor

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ON THE COVER Last year’s Pow Wow, hosted by the Historic Sheridan Inn, saw more than 150 neighbors from the Crow and Cheyenne tribes come together right here in Sheridan. For more on this event, and other recreation recommendations from local adventure-seeker and 82801 Contributor Kevin Knapp, look inside, where Kevin spills the beans and lays out an ideal roadmap to The Essential Sheridan Summer!

Photos by Shawn Parker, Courtesy of Sheridan Travel & Tourism. #VisitSheridan

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The Essential Sheridan Summer hen the creeks and rivers thaw out, it’s time to pull out the fishing pole, canoe, pontoon boat, bathing suit, hiking boots, four-wheeler, and saddle. It is time for barbeques, flowers, trampolines, bicycles, and kiddie pools. The mountains begin to beckon from beyond the edge of town, calling Sheridan into summer.

All season long, no matter the occasion, residents of Sheridan County find a reason to be outside. The opportunities to enjoy the natural world around us are virtually innumerable.

Rather than list every trailhead, campground, and fabulous fishing spot, I asked myself (and others): What are the essentials of the Sheridan summer experience?

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RECREATION

GET OUT OF TOWN The mountains are magical. For the adventurous, the sight of mountains rising thousands of feet above the hills is like a summoning. Trails and streams are waiting to be followed, rocks stand ready to be climbed. On a hot July day, a secluded mountain lake is a jewel still ringed in snow.

No matter why people go into the mountains, they are one of the features that bring people to Sheridan. Whether just for a weekend, a summer, or a lifetime, people who come here fall in love with the mountains. People who are born here stay or come back to be near the mountains. Not

every item on this list is in (or around) the Bighorn Mountains, just most of them!

As soon as I was old enough to carry a pack, my dad started a summer tradition of taking me on a week-long excursion into the Cloud Peak Wilderness. At the time, I took it for granted that such a thing as a “wilderness” existed.

But it turns out that, in 1979 (the same year I was born), a group of folks came together right here in Sheridan to advocate for what would become the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984.

The law that created the majority of wilderness areas in Wyoming, including Cloud Peak.

The 189,039-acre Cloud Peak Wilderness runs for 27 miles along the spine of the Bighorn Mountains. The “wilderness” designation helps

Pictured above: Cloud Peak Wilderness is named for the tallest mountain in the Bighorn National Forest - Cloud Peak at 13,167 feet.

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preserve many sharp summits and towering sheer rock faces standing above glacier-carved, U-shaped valleys. In fact, the last glacier in the Bighorn range lies on the east side of Cloud Peak itself.

From Dayton to Buffalo, there are numerous ways to access the Cloud Peak Wilderness, but the two most popular are the Circle Park Trailhead and the Coffeen Park Trailhead.

Circle Park Trailhead has extra room for horse

trailers, and Circle Park Campground is nearby for overnight camping with restrooms and drinking water available. However, there are no showers, phones, or electricity, and horses are not allowed in the campground.

Directions: From Buffalo, take Highway 16 west for 13.4 miles to Forest Service Road 20. Turn right at the sign for Circle Park Trailhead and go 2.1 miles.

Coffeen Park Trailhead has a large parking lot, but the last 2.5 miles require high-clearance, 4-wheel drive vehicles, so large horse trailers cannot access the area. Dispersed camping is available, but drinking water, electricity, and phones are not! Remember, the elevation is over 8,500 feet, so expect cold nights even in mid-summer.

Directions: From Sheridan, take WY Highway 332 for 4 miles to WY Highway 335. Drive south about 8 miles, after the road becomes Forest Service Road 26, travel another 11 miles to Forest Service Road 293. Follow this four-wheel drive road to the end.

Water, rock, and erosion collaborate, and a canyon is born. The Big Horns are home to so many spectacular canyons that they could fill an entire book. Since I don’t have an entire book to fill, I am focusing on two of my favorites. It is possible to witness two particularly spectacular geological masterpieces without leaving Sheridan County in Crazy Woman and Tongue River Canyons.

The legendary road through Crazy Woman Canyon has been much improved in recent years.

While a high clearance four-wheel drive was once recommended, lots of folks have taken all kinds of vehicles up Crazy Woman Canyon Road without issue. The road threads between the canyon wall

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topped with rugged outcroppings on one side and Crazy Woman Creek on the other.

The road, as dangerousroads.org puts it, “… gets fairly narrow and this can be a problem if you want to turn around or let other cars pass.”

Directions: From Buffalo, head south on I-25 to the Trabing Road Exit. About 1 mile west of the interstate is the junction of Trabing Road with State Highway 196. Crazy Woman Road begins approximately 3.5 miles south of this junction, as County Road 14. As County Road 14 crosses the boundary of the National Forest, it becomes Forest Road 33. This road crosses Crazy Woman Creek and then ascends through this spectacular canyon for over 13 miles, emerging approximately 10 miles east of Powder River Pass on US Highway 16.

Sometimes a canyon really shows off and makes a waterfall. Like all things outdoors, these can be found in abundance in Sheridan County. The Bighorns feature an incredible variety of cascades, cataracts, and rapids.

Shell Falls is the most accessible waterfall, as it is located right next to a highway and has a well maintained interpretive center and viewing platform.

It has taken millions of years for Shell Creek to slice a deep chasm through layers of sedimentary stone and chunks of ancient granite.

The water drops at a rate of 3,600 gallons per second, following fractures in the resistant granite. Shell Canyon is named for the fossils found in the sedimentary canyon walls.

Directions: From Sheridan, take I-90 west for 14.2 miles. Take Exit 9 for U.S. Highway 14 and turn left onto US-14. In 52.7 miles, 21 miles southwest of Burgess Junction, Shell Falls is on the right. The site is open 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., seven days a week, Memorial Day through mid-September.

Little Goose Falls is on the other end of the

Tongue River Canyon is equally spectacular, and even has a cave buried deep in its limestone cliffs, but I won’t tell you where it is. You’re going to have to get out of the car to really enjoy the scenery. And if you want to explore the cave, you are going to have to spend a little time looking around to find it. If you do plan to spelunk, a helmet, head lamp, and water are highly advised.

Directions: From Sheridan, head east on I-90 about 15 miles to the Ranchester Exit. Then west on 14A about 5 miles to Dayton. As you are entering town, just before crossing the Tongue River bridge, turn right and follow the road that parallels the Tongue River. About 3 miles of dirt road will lead you to a Y in the road.

Bear left along the river for about 2 more miles. The road ends in a parking lot. Follow the foot trail for about 1/2 mile to a bridge that crosses the river.

Continue on the trail for hiking, cross the bridge for spelunking and climbing!

spectrum. It’s a little harder to get to, but well worth the effort. Four-wheel drive and a highclearance vehicle are required to navigate the rough road.

Directions: From Big Horn, drive north for 6.2 miles on highway 335. Continue onto Red Grade Road for another 4.8 miles. Turn left onto Evans Rd., which will turn into 314 after 2.4 miles. In another 100 feet, the parking lot will be on the left. The trail

heads downhill through the forest with switchbacks along some granite boulders. Continue along the hill until you arrive at the clear pools of Little Goose Creek.

To get to the base of the falls, stay to the left of the creek and weave your way down the rock face.

COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN The lowland wild places offer a step between the solitude of the mountain and the bustle of town.

A trip to the Story Fish Hatchery can be many things, from a beautiful family picnic to an educational experience (probably a bit of both). The Story Hatchery is the only place on the planet with captive golden trout breed-stock!

The location is a big hit with young children and adults alike; a family park just down the hill offers great playground equipment, picnic tables, and a Frisbee golf course.

Directions: From the east/ south (Gillette/Buffalo) - take I-90 Exit 44 to State Highway 87 to State Highway 194. From the north/west (Sheridan) - take I-90 Exit 33 to State Highway 87 to State Highway 194. The Story Fish Hatchery is located at the end of State Highway 194.

Kleenburn Recreation Area is named for the coal company town that once stood nearby.

The “pits” that are filled with water at the recreation area were part of the area’s coal mining legacy, but they are actually from an old stone quarry that was located within reach.

Sheridan County owns and operates the Kleenburn Recreation Area and The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Ten Sleep Fish Hatchery keeps the Kleenburn Pond well stocked with “catchable-size” Rainbow Trout.

Kleenburn Pond also supports populations of Largemouth Bass, Crappie, Channel Catfish, and Yellow Perch.

Robin Englehart-Bagley likes to visit Kleenburn with her paddleboard. She kayaked first, for seven or eight years, and has paddleboarded for the last few. Kleenburn, Tongue River, and Sibley Lake are her favorite spots.

Robin says that she and her husband are “very outdoorsy people,” and paddle-boarding was just another way they could be active outside. She says that people are very intrigued by her paddle board and ask a lot of questions about it.

The good news is that paddleboards have

come down in price. You can still buy ridiculously expensive boards for over $1,000, but an inflatable one like Robin’s is around $350.

She says that the backpack is “not exactly comfortable.”

Most people start out kneeling on a paddle board until they are comfortable with standing up. Robin says, “I like it because in the kayak you’re low and on the paddleboard your higher and you see better, and it’s a really good workout.

My dog rides with me.”

It seems summer is all about heat, and ways to escape it! Heading for a higher elevation is one way, but sometimes the most surefire way to cool down is to soak your head.

If you plan on visiting Kendrick Park, bring your bathing suit because you can either join the people dunking themselves in Big Goose or you can visit Kendrick Pool. The municipal pool has a slide, a diving board, and a fun waterpark/wading pool. It shares a fence with the bison and elk enclosure, so keep your eye out for large mammals.

Hint: Don’t miss the ice cream stand but be prepared to stand in line.

Of course, I’ve overlooked so many great places. For even more swimming (and fishing), head to Lake DeSmet or Tongue River Reservoir. Or how about a hike on the Red Grade Trails System?

At the very least, do yourself a favor and take a Sunday drive now and then. You never know what you might find.

Oh, and don’t forget that Yellowstone really isn’t that far away!

FESTIVALS

TAKE TO THE STREETS The festivals in our area are some of our most charming summer offerings. Some, like Third Thursday, have been around for a while, but others, like the Big Horn Mountain Brewfest, have only been added more recently. It seems like Sheridan keeps coming up with new reasons to celebrate, and nobody’s complaining!

But, let’s admit it, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo will likely always be the ultimate weeklong Sheridan festival.

Cowboy culture is alive and well during Rodeo Week in Sheridan. Sheridan WYO Rodeo week runs July 9 – 15, 2018, featuring four nights of PRCA-sanctioned rodeo performances, World Championship Indian Relay Races, Wild Pony Races, and a star-spangled fly-in by Sgt. First Class (Ret.) U.S. Army, Dana Bowman, a former member of the U.S. Army’s elite parachute team and doubleamputee. Pre-rodeo entertainment begins at 6:30, featuring the U.S. Army Commanding General’s Mounted Color Guard. The rodeo begins at 7 p.m. sharp each evening.

Rodeo week will begin with the boot kick-off on Tuesday, July 10 at Whitney Commons. The

Kiwanis pancake breakfast on Grinnell Plaza, Sneakers & Spurs Rodeo Run, Main Street Bed Races and Rodeo Parade will all take place on Friday, July 13. Rodeo Slack runs Tuesday through Friday.

The Sheridan County Fairgrounds Carnival will run all four nights of the rodeo, and downtown Street Dances will be back this year on Friday and Saturday nights. WYO Rodeo week winds down on Sunday, July 15 with MAY / JUNE 2018

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Join the conversation and share your essential Sheridan summer secrets and pics at 82801Life.com

the WYO Rodeo Cup, Eatons’ Cup, and Cowboy Polo at the Big Horn Equestrian Center.

Hint: Don’t miss the First People’s Pow Wow on the lawn of the Historic Sheridan Inn immediately following the parade. The Pow Wow features dancers and participants from many Indian nations from throughout the Continental U.S.

As big as rodeo week is, you can find Sheridan bustling with festive crowds throughout the summer.

Every Thursday, the Farmers Market is held on Grinnell plaza and, of course, everyone looks forward to the Third Thursday of each month, especially during the summer. The whole town turns out to get outside, go downtown, and

Additionally, in order to ensure that everyone makes it home safely, the event offers free admission and collectible cups to thank designated drivers for coming. So, if you are looking for an event that involves drinking, but also has something for the kids, be sure to head up the mountain and see the ski area. It’s well worth the drive.

spend a pleasant evening taking in the offerings.

From 5-9 p.m., live music and food vendors can be found in the area around Grinnell Plaza, with booths and artisans all throughout Sheridan’s historic downtown.

Every Tuesday evening in June, July, and August, there will be live music in Kendrick Park. A variety of genres are represented, drawing from local talent as well as bands coming through the area from all over the country. The Concerts in the Park offer a relaxed environment to sit on the grass or kick off your shoes and dance. Be sure to bring your own blanket or chair and plenty of snacks and water and get ready to enjoy good music and company in a beautiful place.

If you like your festivals with beer, Sheridan will not disappoint.

First, we’ll have to go back up the mountain to Antelope Butte. Although the Antelope Butte Foundation hasn’t yet re-opened the old ski area, they are already holding summertime events at the site, such as the Bighorn Mountain Brewfest, Saturday, June 30th from 1–5 p.m. and the Antelope Butte Summer Festival, July 20-22.

The Bighorn Mountain Brewfest is a unique, family-

friendly event, with games and inflatables for the kids, live music, and readily available hiking.

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On August 25, head to Whitney Commons for the Suds N’ Spurs Brewfest. There will be unlimited beer sampling from different craft brewers (17 more brewers than last year!) from all over the region, live music, food, and other beverages available.

Once again, I must point out that I can’t possibly mention everything here. There is just too much happening! I will throw in that runners and bikers can find races like the Dead Swede, Biketoberfest, and many others, and people looking to enjoy the arts can find ample live music and plays at the WYO and Carriage House theaters. Also, don’t forget to check out the Wyoming Theater Festival.

Well, there you have it: from the heights of the Cloud Peak Wilderness to the depths of the pits at Kleenburn – and, we’ve barely scratched the surface. Now, I put the question to you: What does your essential Sheridan summer look like?

By: Kevin M. Knapp for 82801

On the Blood of My Brother Were four U.S. airmen sacrificed for peace in Vietnam?

gt. Ron Schofield looked at the wreckage of the EC-47Q aircraft, codenamed Baron 52, and saw the grisly remains of three bodies. The jungles of Laos surrounded him, as dense with bamboo as they were with danger.

When the aircraft went down, it had several hours of fuel on board, which created an intense heat. Though badly decomposed and covered in charred debris from the crash, the corpses were easily recognizable as human bodies due to the Nomex fire-resistant flight suits the crew wore, which kept their remains from turning to ash in the fiery blaze that consumed most of the aircraft fuselage.

It was February of 1973. The Paris Peace Accord had been signed in January, bringing the Vietnam War to its conclusion. But Schofield and three other pararescuemen, referred to in military lingo as PJs, were still risking their lives in Southeast Asia. Two days prior, Baron 52 was shot down and plunged into the triple canopy jungle.

The pararescuemens’ mission priorities were to search for survivors, recover fallen soldiers, locate any classified documents, and destroy classified electronic equipment.

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Schofield could hear gunfire nearby, and a missile had targeted their HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopter as the PJs flew to the site. Two large North Vietnamese bases were a short distance

Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, are trying to help the away. There wasn’t much time. While two PJs set family get Joe Matejov’s status changed to MIA. It’s up a perimeter, Schofield and another PJ quickly one of many attempts over the course of the years searched the wreckage. In the hasty, 15-minute to get the military to reconsider its 1973 conclusion examination of the wreckage, Schofield concluded about the crew of Baron 52. no one survived the crash. Shortly after, the military also concluded the entire crew of the Baron 52 perished in the SIMPLE REQUEST early morning hours of February 5th, 1973. But for the families Matejov lives an idyllic life in of some of the crewmen on that Story, Wyoming. The retired flight, questions linger over the Marine’s cabin sits in the foothills military’s investigation. They have of the pine-blanketed Bighorn contended for decades four of the Mountains. Guests are greeted at men survived the crash and were the door by a five-foot-tall stuffed Sgt. Joe Matejov taken prisoner — among them Sgt. black bear Matejov took down Joe Matejov. with a bow. Hung on the walls throughout the As shown in declassified, partially redacted house are other mounted game he’s hunted. He testimonies, Schofield would also later develop makes his living as a guide and considers himself doubts about his initial conclusion. blessed. “If someone would have told me forty years Matejov’s younger brother, John, has worked ago I’d be living here, surrounded by all this beauty meticulously to document every aspect of the and making a living as a guide, I’d have asked what investigation. He believes Joe not only survived, drugs they were doing,” Matejov says. but was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese Besides the hunting tackle and trophies and may have died in captivity sometime later. are piles of documents — boxes upon boxes of Meanwhile, the truth about Joe’s final days, and them. They’re scattered across his living room and those of his crewmates, were buried stacked around his computer. These include letters, beneath a mountain of politics in declassified archives, photos, diagrams, maps, and the final weeks of a long, contentious printed emails — a DVD of the movie Platoon conflict in Southeast Asia. Matejov’s mixed in with them — all documenting his older only goal is to have the status of his brother’s case over the course of 45 years. While it brother changed from killed in may appear to be an obsessed conspiracy theorists’ action to missing in action, a goal hobby, Matejov speaks rationally about the case and he believes is important to honoring its goals. Critical questions don’t solicit defensive his brother and the service Joe responses. He provides a fair answer when he can provided to his country. “There’s and concedes when unknowns exist. He’s passionate a debt obligation we have to those but not unreasonable about his quest. who serve. The government owes us A full account of every aspect of the case and a proper accounting,” he says. every action Matejov has taken over the years would Some high-level officials believe this request take a full-length book to cover comprehensively. has merits. Currently, a delegation of federal It’s enough to say he’s endured an arduous process in representatives, among them Wyoming Senators pursuit of a relatively simple request.

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Matejov and his family are not asking for the military to launch a mission to Laos to find Joe. They don’t want new legislation passed or anyone put on trial. Their only goal is to have Joe Matejov’s name added to the 83,000 soldiers the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists as missing and unrecovered. Yet, through several channels over decades, their request has been consistently denied.

NAGGING QUESTIONS

We know from declassified documents Baron 52 was on a reconnaissance mission to locate tank columns moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the infamous network of trails through Laos that the North Vietnamese used to transport men and materials between North and South Vietnam. The U.S. needed to destroy the tanks to slow down the MY BUDDY takeover of Saigon by the North Vietnamese. There were still lot of troops and equipment in South The Matejovs are a military family, with members Vietnam, and the country’s fall was imminent. The serving or having served in every branch. withdrawal of the U.S. military needed more time.

John’s father was So, with its crew of a West Point graduate, electronic warfare who won the Silver specialists, Baron 52 Star in Korea. His flew through the night sister, Theresa Freeze, air at 10,000 feet, an was in the second class altitude that helped of women at West keep it safe from Point and is married to artillery fire. Every a West Point graduate.

20 minutes, Baron 52 Her son is presently radioed the airborne serving as an officer command-and-control in the Navy nuclear center, which was also Joe Matejov with his father Stephen submarine program. sailing over the Laotian

“We have over 100 years of combined military skies that night. At 1:25 a.m., the crew radioed they service and growing,” John says proudly. had anti-aircraft fire in the area but reported no John and his brother grew up among ten damage. They were never heard from again. siblings. Joe was third from the top, and John was Two days later, Schofield and the three other right behind him. “My brother Joe was my buddy,” PJs were at the site of the crash. The fuselage was John recalls fondly. He says they did everything upside-down, and only about 18 inches of the top of together, including some typical boyhood mischief, the plane remained resting on the ground. The rest the details of which he declines, with a bashful of the aircraft had been burnt away. The tail section smile, to discuss. was 400 meters up a hill, and the wings were about John ended up joining the marines, largely 100 meters from the fuselage. In the 15 minutes out of a rivalry with his brother. Originally, Joe had spent on the ground, the PJs only had enough time planned to join the marines with a friend, but the to recover part of the remains of the co-pilot, 1st Lt. friend backed out and Joe went into the Air Force.

Robert E. Bernhardt. One of the other PJs stated he John joined the marines just to one-up his brother. thought he saw the remains of a fourth body, but no “We were always competing,” John says. John never other bodies were seen. ended up serving in Vietnam. He was stateside as

The thing that would nag Schofield later when they were bringing troops home. he thought about what he saw that day was the He recalls standing in the office of his fact the Nomex suits would preserve at least three commanding officer, hearing the news that his corpses but none of the others. “There should have brother had been shot down and was, at that point, been some remains of the backenders in the fire, in a missing status. It was especially hard to take, John but there wasn’t anything,” Schofield said in a 1989 says, because it was so unexpected. The war was over, declassified oral history document. Schofield also and his brother was coming home safe, he thought. noted something else that would itch at the back of

“I was devastated,” he says. his mind. The rear door, which would have been on

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during the flight, was gone. “It looked like it had been kicked off,” Schofield said 16 years after their incursion to the site.

HASTY CONCLUSION Eight days after the crash, Col. Francis Humphreys wrote Matejov’s mother and father to say there was a possibility that one or more of the crew members parachuted to safety. “Therefore, your son will continue to be carried in a missing status until a final determination can be made,” the colonel wrote in the letter.

Eight days after he sent that letter, a cable from higher command at the Air Force stated that the family members of the missing men had contacted the office. The cable requested Humphreys declare the missing men to be killed-in-action or make another incursion into the dangerous territory at the crash site to gather more information that could confirm their deaths. The colonel did a complete 180-degree turn and declared, without any new evidence, that all crewmembers of Baron 52 had died in the crash. According to the official account, Baron 52 experienced a catastrophic event that sent it nose-first into the jungle. It struck the ground, bounced up, and landed belly-up where it burned along with the bodies of all eight crewmembers.

Roger Shields, who was chairman of the Defense Department POW/MIA task group, told Stars and Stripes in a 2016 article on the Baron 52 case that the military often classified troops as missing-in-action with little or no evidence of the possibility of survival.

Nonetheless, Humphreys reiterated his conclusion in a letter to the Matejovs the following April. “We did employ a certain amount of

Photograph of an EC-47

conjecture…. However, we made logical assumptions based on all available faces and information,” Humphreys wrote.

ILLEGAL MISSION

the list of MIAs. They weren’t to be discussed with the Laotians or the International Red Cross.

Negotiating the release of the Baron 52 crew, if they were alive, was complicated by the fact their mission, some would claim, violated the terms of the peace agreement. To ask for their release was to acknowledge their activities, John Matejov argues.

Sgt. Peter Cressman was an electronic expert, trained in intercepting enemy transmissions. He flew top-secret missions over the PEACE WITH HONOR jungles of Southeast Asia and was stationed at the Uban Royal As the U.S. was trying to get out of the Airforce Base in Thailand in Vietnam War, the issue of returning February 1973. Though the Paris prisoners of war was a sticky point in the Peace Accord had been signed negotiations. The U.S. suspected there the previous month, he was still were POWs throughout Indochina. receiving orders to fly combat During the peace negotiations, the missions. Cressman considered representatives of North Vietnam agreed these missions to be a violation to return all U.S. soldiers being held Sgt. Peter Cressman* of the international “peace with in Vietnam but insisted they had no honor” agreement. He was being asked to do authority to guarantee the return of any being held something he felt was immoral and illegal, and he in Laos or Cambodia. discussed these concerns with the base legal office.

During a discussion of the issue in September The staff of the office warned him of the 1972, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained consequences of refusing orders. So, he decided to the North Vietnamese advisor working on the to follow orders and express his protests in a letter peace process, Le Duc Tho, of the political necessity to his congressman. The congressman would of ensuring prisoners of war in Indochina were never receive the letter because Cressman was returned. He said President Nixon would not sign sitting across from Joe Matejov on Baron 52 when a peace treaty that didn’t guarantee it, because the it crashed. Cressman’s family would discover the American public would never accept it. Kissinger letter among his personal effects the Air Force sent appeared to propose a compromise to the issue. home. Cressman is one of the “backenders” who “The language used to express it is of course may have survived the crash. subject to negotiation,” Kissinger said in the meeting.

Several days after Humphreys concluded “So, you mean by that there is a difference the Baron 52 crew died in the crash, the U.S. between reality and language?” Tho asked.

Department of State sent a message to the American “If we have assurances that all American ambassador in Laos, telling him to remove the prisoners held in Indochina will be returned as names of the missing Baron 52 crewmembers from a result of the agreement, then we can negotiate about the language that expresses that reality,” Kissinger replied.

The importance of the peace agreement escalated as the Watergate scandal began to grow after the agreement was signed. According to the infamous Nixon tapes, in March of 1973, Nixon met with his press secretary and two key figures in the Watergate scandal. The president told them how important it was to get the controversial war concluded so the Watergate scandal could be dealt with. “My view would be to get the Vietnam [War] out of the way and maybe get this right if you could,” Nixon said.

Matejov says he “emphatically” believes this was the primary reason why Humphreys was pressured to list the men as KIA and why the Baron 52 crew were removed from the POW list. Alive, the men were complicating an international agreement and politically dangerous to the president and his friends. “Dr. Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize for obtaining ‘peace with honor’ in Vietnam. And I say he did that on the blood of my brother,” Matejov says.

ENEMY INTERCEPTS Written in 1970, the Air Force Manual 30-4 provides procedures for determining casualty status.

The manual explicitly authorizes a commander to make a KIA determination only “when conclusive evidence of death is obtained at any time during the search.” The manual also specifically defines conclusive evidence as being a situation where all available information shows that a missing person could not have survived. Matejov believes there’s something far beyond a reasonable doubt when it comes to the conclusion about his brother’s death.

One of the main points made by those who insist there were no survivors of the crash is the fact that, in a plane full of radio experts, no one communicated the aircraft was in trouble. Likewise, all the men were equipped with survival beacons, which were never activated. But, this isn’t entirely true, as the family would learn years later when declassified documents were located at the Library of Congress. Search and Rescue logs noted beeper signals northwest of the crash site on February 5th and 7th. Some speculate that the men didn’t parachute out of the aircraft but egressed from the back of the fuselage, the tail section having separated, after it came to rest in the jungle.

Adding to the suspicions the men were taken prisoner are the enemy intercepts that were picked up on the morning after the crash by a U.S. surveillance plane flying over the South China Sea. The original translation of the intercept read: “Group is holding four pilots captive and the group is requesting orders concerning what to do with them.” It was acquired about 5 1/2 to 6 hours after the crash of Baron 52. The intercept went through other interpreters, and a later version used the word “pirates” instead of “pilots.” The former term was used to refer to American pilots.

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In May of 1973, Jerry Mooney, a National Security Agency analyst, did his own interpretation of the radio intercepts. Based on mile markers he believed were contained in the enemy transmission, Mooney concluded they originated near the crash.

He also believes the communications showed the U.S. crewmembers were burned and being treated for shock.

THE ANALYST Pararescueman Schofield’s accounts of his cursory examination of the site went down in a deposition that would be added to the documentation presented to a 1993 Senate Select Committee that examined the possibility of POWs left behind in Vietnam. The committee concluded the Baron 52 crew did not survive the crash.

Schofield mentions, in his 188-page deposition, a strange conversation he had with a senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Robert Destatte, in November 1986. At the time, Schofield was stationed in Scotland.

Destatte was a signals intercept technician in Vietnam during the war, and in the mid-1980s the DIA recruited him to investigate POW cases.

He was detailed to the Baron 52 case and others, and his analysis has long maintained none of the crewmembers of Baron 52 survived. He would later provide testimony to this fact before the Senate Select Committee. Among those close to the case, he’s often painted as a shadowy figure whose analysis is central to maintaining the crew’s KIA status.

Baron-52 crash site

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In the course of his investigation, Destatte interviewed Schofield. Schofield claimed under oath that Destatte, who was never at the site, pushed him to say he never heard gunfire. Schofield refused to change his account to leave that detail out.

“Well, I know what I hear, because I’ve been fired at enough,” Schofield said.

Today, Destatte is retired from the Air Force and lives in California. Like Matejov, he’s forthcoming with information and responsive to scrutinizing questions. But he just doesn’t agree with the families of the missing crewmembers. He remains steadfast in his conclusion the crew of Baron 52 died in the crash and were never taken prison. “I get no pleasure from saying that, but it is a fact,” he says.

He also denies he ever suggested Schofield change his story. He says Schofield remembered the conversation incorrectly. “Why the hell would I tell him that? I wasn’t there,” Destatte says frankly.

LOST IN TRANSLATION Destatte says that Schofield’s change of mind about the fate of the crew was influenced by the enemy intercepts, which were discussed vaguely in rumors around the U.S. base in Thailand at the time, where Schofield was stationed. However, in his deposition, Schofield overtly disputes this claim. He testified he began to change his mind after further considering the missing cargo door and missing corpses at the crash site. The rumors of the intercepts, he stated, had nothing to do with it.

The shortcomings of memory may very well play into the discrepancies between the two men’s stories. Schofield also seemed to believe there was only one helicopter at the crash site, when official records show there were two. Whatever the case, Destatte insists the “four pilots” message has nothing to do with the Baron 52 crew.

He tells the story from when he was a signals technician and how analysts working with him transcribed an enemy message stating a rabbit had been spotted. In fact, the enemy was doing surveillance of an area that was colloquially referred to as The Rabbit because it looks like the animal on a map. He uses the story to illustrate how the nuances of language, including local connotations, can easily be misinterpreted even if the literal translation from Vietnamese to English is accurate.

He’s careful not to disparage the NSA analysts who initially interpreted the “four pilots” intercept prior to Mooney’s analysis. He explains that language is so complex it’s not an easy thing to accurately relate covert messages without education and experience far beyond what’s feasible for every analyst to possess.

In fact, he’s careful not to disparage most everyone

involved with the case. Destatte even says Schofield’s later convictions were held “in good conscience,” even if he believes those convictions were flawed.

He’s not so kind to Mooney, whose interpretation has been the primary basis for correlation of those intercepts to the Baron 52 crew.

He says the man was not just wrong but reckless and irresponsible. He calls Mooney’s analysis his “private musings” full of unsubstantiated speculation.

Destatte went through all the translations when he was investigating the case in the 1980s. The translations are declassified today, with only a few words redacted.

Destatte said the NSA was very helpful in providing him all he needed to do a thorough examination of the information himself. Destatte’s investigation went all the way back to the original technician and the original logbooks, which noted the transmission came from an area far from the crash site.

He says he tried in vain to get ahold of the

recordings of the original message to do his own translation, but they were long destroyed. “That turned out to be a dry hole,” he says. So, he had to largely rely on memories of the analysts and their interpretations.

His refutation of Mooney’s analysis is deeply involved, detailed, and covers every aspect of the message and Mooney’s interpretations. Destatte came to the conclusion that the message originated hundreds of kilometers from the site and refers to captive defectors from the Pathet Lao, a Laotian communist group sympathetic to the North Vietnamese. They were not American pilots, Destatte insists.

ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG Of course, the Matejovs fervently dispute Destatte’s position.

The enemy intercepts were among the first pieces of evidence to solicit questions over the fate

of the Baron 52 crew. Whether or not they correlate to the missing backenders, they are now just one piece of the evidence those who question the KIA status point to.

The crash site was excavated in 1993. They found eight d-rings that correspond to four survival kits, leaving four of the kits missing, and they didn’t find eight of the radios. Four pistols were also missing. Two pistols were found buried side-by-side near the site but not within the wreckage. These valuable weapons were intentionally placed in a hole by someone at some time. Two dog tags from two of the crewmembers, however, were found. One of the dog tags was that of Joe Matejov. Before any digging began, during a surface survey of the site, it was found sitting in plain view on top of the ground.

Col. Ralph Wetterhahn is retired from the Air Force and has an extensive background in military safety. His specialty is crash investigation. The

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colonel once traveled to Guadalcanal to inspect the wreckage of an American Wildcat shot down by a Japanese Zero during a famous dogfight between two aces of World War II. His expertise was utilized for a PBS program in 2006 on the dogfight, and he wrote an article on the crash analysis for the Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine.

He says the dog tags found in the excavation don’t mean a whole lot. Out of hundreds of possible scenarios, the tags could fall off while a crewman was removing his headset. He also points out other items not found at the site. Besides four weapons, the missing items include combat knives, wedding rings, radios, and survival kits — all of which Wetterhahn says should have been there.

There is also the complete lack of human remains, something the excavation report noted. While the site may have been looted, scavengers would probably not carry away decomposed bodies and bones. At a site where seven-and-a-half bodies were supposedly left behind, the entire dig produced 31 bone fragments, including a tooth. “It is unclear why there was such a limited amount of remains found at this remote site,” the report noted. In 1996, these bone fragments were lowered inside a casket at Arlington National Cemetery for Joe Matejov and the other unrecovered crewmembers of Baron 52.

CRASH ANALYSIS Wetterhahn reviewed the official account of how Baron 52 crashed. He said they largely have no reason to believe the aircraft nosedived into the jungle. Those who theorize that scenario basically just “made something up.”

“What they decided happened is aeronautically impossible,” Wetterhahn said.

He points to the photographs of the 1993 excavation of the site. The front of the aircraft has no “permanent defamation,” as they call it, which means it doesn’t show evidence of an impact with anything, much less a direct hit with the ground.

There was also no impact crater in the soil where

Baron 52 headstone - 5 Feb 2009*

the plane crashed. “It can’t go straight in without damage to the nose,” Wetterhahn said.

Wetterhahn believes the aircraft landed at a shallow impact angle, striking a hill. It then flipped upside down, breaking off one wing and then the other, as well as the tail section. “Exiting from the rear of the aircraft would have been rather simple,” the colonel said.

He said the bamboo grass would have cushioned the chaotic landing, and the fuselage hit nothing. “It’s a nice way to slow down actually,” he said.

On the top of the hill above the crash site — the one Wetterhahn believes the aircraft struck at a shallow angle — are two gouges in the jungle foliage. It’s just the kind of mark two wings would make cutting through the bamboo.

He concurs with Matejov that the official conclusion erred on the side of KIA as a matter of political necessity. And he doesn’t fault those who may have acted under orders to carry out the mission to get peace in Vietnam. But over four decades later, he says, it’s time for the truth to come out.

“When the dust settles, it’s time to set the record straight. And that’s all [the families] want to do,” Wetterhahn says.

TOURISON DOCUMENTS In February of 2016, nine of Joe Matejov’s siblings and other relatives from all over the country flew

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to Arlington, Virginia, to present their case before the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, in hopes they could finally get Joe the proper accounting they believe he’s been denied. The family had hired lawyers, who ended up doing some of the work pro-bono, to help them provide a solid presentation of all the evidence that Joe and other Baron 52 crewmembers survived the crash.

Shortly before the meeting with DPAA officials, the lawyers came across a declassified memo, written by Sedgwick Tourison, at Texas Tech University, which keeps an archive of declassified material from the Vietnam War. Tourison was an analyst hired by the 1993 Senate Select Committee to look over the Baron 52 case. In a June 1992 memo to an aid for John Kerry, who chaired the committee, Tourison stated “in the absence of any compelling evidence of death and in a manner inconsistent with the normal casualty investigation procedures” the crew of Baron 52 were all reported as having been killed in action.

By pronouncing them KIA, Tourison said in the memo, the military had “effectively removed these eight individuals from any serious consideration for recovery.” If any of them survived, the classification meant no official efforts were ever made to look for them, despite intelligence resources being available at the CIA station in Laos, Tourison stated.

Even more troubling, Tourison discovered the DIA had a separate accounting document from 1974 that listed the Baron 52 crew under the code “kk,” which was a designation code for servicemen killed in captivity.

“There is no explanation for DIA’s conclusion that some had been captured alive and then may have been killed…. In short, it is now evident that the Administration has had information about the capture of some individuals, that the Administration has denied this information for two or more decades and for reasons which are unclear,” Tourison wrote in the memo.

To date, the family has never received any explanation for this separate account, which was entirely inconsistent with the Air Force’s official version.

NO BASIS TO REEXAMINE In their 2016 meeting with the DPAA officials, the family and their lawyers laid out all the evidence they have that suggests there is a reasonable doubt that all the crew of Baron 52 perished in the crash. By that point, the evidence included the excavation findings, Wetterhahn’s crash analysis, Schofield’s depositions, and everything else they’d gathered in four decades since Joe Matejov went down in the jungles of Laos.

In November 2016, the Air Force wrote John Matejov to say it had “determined there is no basis to reexamine or disturb the original 1973 KIA determination.”

In its response, the Air Force disputes the rescue beeper signals having come from surviving crewmembers, as the signals came from the northwest, which was not along the flight path of the aircraft. If the men parachuted out, they would have landed south of the crash site. It dismisses the lack of visible corpses as being “speculative.” The missing cargo door is said to be the result of the extensive aircraft damage.

Wetterhahn’s analysis is disputed as well, claiming that while the aircraft came in nosedown, as a result of contact with the jungle canopy,

it landed “in a near horizontal attitude” by the time it struck the ground. This explains the lack of damage on the nose or an impact crater. The Air Force conclusion also dismisses the enemy intercepts, claiming the correlation to the Baron 52 crew was a result of mistranslations and inaccurate speculations. And the DPAA concluded the lack of evidence from the excavation is the result of the fire that destroyed most of the fuselage or from scavenging after the crash.

All other evidence was likewise dismissed.

Wetterhahn posed a series of questions and comments to the Air Force and DPAA concerning their conclusions. It appears no qualified crash investigator reviewed Wetterhahn’s analysis of the crash, and they did not address the two pistols found buried away from the crash site. He also criticized the lack of understanding of the Search and Rescue logs noting the reception of survival beeper signals.

Neither he nor the Matejov family ever received any response to Wetterhahn’s points.

RUN FOR THE WALL Judy Wormmeester — the youngest of the Matejov sisters — rides every year with the Run for The Wall. It’s an organized motorcycle ride across the country from California to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, in honor of prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Since 2013, she has ridden the route with a patch of her brother Joe and the year Baron 52 was shot down over Laos. She said after so many years of telling Joe’s story, she got tired of repeating it. For a time, she stopped talking about him.

“I had kind of put Joe up on a shelf,” she said.

She said the Run for the Wall allows her to connect with others who can hear Joe’s story with understanding.

“They all know there were people left behind,” she said.

It’s been a long journey for the Matejovs.

While the families of the other four crewmen also pushed to have their loved one’s statuses changed, most of them have passed away or given up. The Matejovs and a brother of Cressman, Bob, are the last ones actively pursuing the matter.

For Bob Cressman, the goal of the status

change is making relevant any facts that may come to light that could show what happened to his brother. He said with the status listed as KIA, no one is really looking for answers.

“I’d like an honest answer and not the BS they gave us,” Cressman says.

Freeze, John’s sister, said she thinks changing the status would open up a “can of worms” that too

Joe Matejov

many people have an interest in keeping closed.

Besides Enzi and Barrasso, the delegation letter is signed by Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, as well as three federal legislators from Oregon, where Matejov’s sister, Mary Salzinger, lives. The letter states that the 2016 DPAA review did not consider evidence in the Tourison documents, which it was presented in July of that year, and asks that the Baron 52 matter be reviewed and reconsidered at the Department of Defense level. “We ask that you direct your employees to conduct this review with the dignity, diligence, and attentiveness it so deserves,” the letter states.

The letter provides an April 15, 2018, deadline for a response. As of April 2018, the Matejov family has not received anything in the way of a reply.

John Matejov says he never dreamed in the late 70s, when his family first started to raise questions about his brother’s KIA status, that he’d still be pursuing a review nearly 50 years later. But he has no plans on giving up. He says if the DOD declines to review the case, they will take it all the way to President Trump.

“We’re not just going to let it lie,” he says.

By: Kevin D. Killough for 82801

Photos courtesy of John Matejov. *Photos courtesy of 6994th.com.

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A Burning Tradition he morning sun is beating down on the corral, and the calm stillness has been replaced with hooves pounding the dirt and the sound of calves bawling and cows bellowing. The heat rising from stove as the irons heat up is causing the sky to dance around in a heat haze, making me thankful we do this in the relative coolness of the morning. The other tools for this morning’s work are ready and within reach; the ear notcher, syringe guns filled with vaccine, and castration bander (sorry little guys). Most importantly, friends and neighbors have arrived, ready to help.

Everyone quickly comes together like a well-oiled machine, and the calves are moving through like clockwork, the smoke and smell of burning hair being carried on the breeze.

Branding. The most efficient and simple way to identify a cow, as well as a long-standing tradition of agriculture. A 4,700-year-old

T

tradition started by the ancient Egyptians and brought to the Americas in the early 16th century.

But as of the late, some say its future practice has been challenged by the push for individual identification over group lot identification.

DISEASE, GLOBAL TRADE AND THE FAILED NAIS

(GOVERNMENT OVERREACH?) Nationalization, globalization, and the threat of disease had concerned federal regulators pushing ranchers to move on from a tradition older than Modern America. Swapping the cattle brand for an electronic, radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. In 2003, a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or “mad cow disease” is what fueled the fire. By early 2004, a working group of both industry and government officials came together with a lofty goal, a

nationwide 48-hour traceback of all livestock and poultry in the event of a disease emergency.

Rhonda Skaggs further explains in her research appearing in the book by Dr. Cristina Turchu, “Deploying RFID - Challenges, Solutions, and Open Issues”, that the stage was already set for the federal government to be involved in this effort through the Animal Health Protection Act (AHPA), which was enacted with the 2002 Farm Bill. Its language indicated the intention of the federal government to expand regulation of livestock due to interstate commerce and related movements of threats such as disease or pests. This essentially would give the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture the ability to block producers from moving their livestock unless they participated in the NAIS.

This did not go over well.

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RANCHERS REACT

PRIVACY CONCERNS

Needless to the say, the federal government grossly underestimated the deep distrust that many cattle producers harbored towards them and large agribusiness. At the root of this distrust; fewer than ever, yet larger beef feeding and packing operations have many cow-calf producers believing that they are at the losing end of the structural change, and that the non-competitive market behavior by feeders and packers have depressed cattle prices.

While the federal government has maintained that improved disease management through nationwide animal identification and traceability is critical to the viability of the U.S. livestock industry, many producers raised concerns over the security and confidentiality of the animal data provided to the NAIS – not believing the USDA’s assurances that the information would not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act requests or that it was to be restricted to animal health emergencies. Some claimed it was unconstitutional, and an invasion of their privacy, and expressed concerned about increased producer liability as a result of data traceback.

WHO’S FOOTING THE BILL? Among the myriad reasons to oppose the NAIS were the producers’ fears that the feeding and packing sectors would be the ones to benefit from performance and tracking information derived from the electronic data, while the smallest farming and ranching operations in the country took on the burden of the cost. Their fears were not unfounded.

A 2009 USDA benefit cost analysis (USDA-APHIS, 2009b, 2009c), confirmed that a staggering 79 percent of the total annual beef cattle industry cost of a fully implemented NAIS would be incurred by beef cow-calf operations.

Most medium-to-smaller operations simply could not afford the cost of the infrastructure involved; with the cost of an individual cow-calf animal ID system with full traceability ranged from a low of $2.48 per head for the largest operations to a high of $7.17 per head for the smallest operations.

Key principles of the framework include: • Interstate animal movement.

• Administration by the States and Tribal Nations to increase flexibility.

• Encouraging the use of lower cost technology.

• Transparency through the full Federal rulemaking process.

Beef cattle under 18 months of age, unless moved interstate for shows, exhibitions, rodeos, or recreational events, are exempt from the official

DAVID SLAYS GOLIATH The pushback proved too much, and in February 2010, the USDA announced that it was abandoning the NAIS (USDA-APHIS, 2010), and moved to the current animal disease traceability (ADT) framework finalized in 2012, which according to their website is the “result of significant discussion and compromise”.

"The new framework allows maximum flexibility for states, tribal nations and producers to work together to find traceability solutions that meet their local needs," said Neil Hammerschmidt, APHIS program manager for animal disease traceability.

identification requirement in this rule. Specific traceability requirements for this group will be addressed in separate rulemaking, allowing APHIS to work closely with industry to ensure the effective implementation of the identification requirements. (9 CFR Parts 71, 77, 78, and 86)

THE FUTURE OF RFID Every operation is unique in terms of challenges and how it is managed, and technology is rapidly changing and advancing. One of the downsides to

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RFID early on was the use of low-frequency, making the process of gathering the animal’s data painfully slow and inefficient. As you need to be close to the animal to scan it, the use of a chute is generally required, which causes undue stress to the animal.

Research has shown that an animal can lose between one and 1-1/2 percent of their body weight due to stress each time they are squeezed in a chute.

The limitations of the low frequency tags have sparked the development of ultra-high frequency (UHF) dangle tags, allowing the tags to be read at a distance. With the UHF tags and readers, the

the iceberg. For now, it is up to the producer, not Uncle Sam to decide if this technology is a good fit for their operation.

THE TRADITION CONTINUES

animals can then be run through an alley as a group, and scanned more quickly and efficiently, and with less stress. This means less wear and tear on facilities as well as reduced time and labor – making the technology much more feasible and attractive to producers with an increased return on investment.

UHF and drone technology could mean an entire pasture could be inventoried remotely from a smartphone, or an entire truck-load of cattle could be scanned at once. There is no doubt that this changing technology will have a huge impact on the industry, and we are only seeing the tip of

Amongst the controversy and emerging technology, the enduring and beloved hot-iron brand, like a ranching “coat of arms” plays a critical role in the modern cow-calf operation, and is still the main method of proof of ownership and permanent identification of livestock. If and when RFID tags become mandatory in the future, they can still fall off, or be cut off and your animal will still need a way to be identified, rendering electronic RFID tags less reliable when used alone. The brand remains an important tool in identification and traceability and provides that information in a permanent form.

When the fence breaks, who is going to inspect and scan every animal to get them sorted?

This is especially important in Wyoming as many of our operations are vast and neighbor to other producers. Brands are easily seen from a distance and the animal can be identified quickly.

As the saying goes, “Trust your neighbor, but brand your cattle.” It’s still the cheapest theft insurance you can get!

While there is no doubt the agriculture industry is rapidly advancing and embracing technology, and that disease traceability is important, identification solely through an

electronic tag leaves herds open to a threat that has been around as long as ranching itself, fraud and theft. Branding, as much a cultural expression as it is a necessity, is more than a tradition – it is a deeplyrooted piece of our identity and a cornerstone that has symbolized the ranching lifestyle for centuries.

By: Candice E. Schlautmann for 82801 Photos By: Jeanie Schlautmann SOURCES Animal Disease Traceabililty. (2018, April 5). Retrieved from: https:// www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/SA_Traceability Ishmael, W. (2011, December 16). USDA Looks At Another National Animal ID System. Retrieved from: http://www.beefmagazine.com/ animal-id-nais/usda-animal-id-traceability-program-1001 Krieger, L. M. (2012, January 16). Ranchers see demise of livestock branding. Retrieved from: http://www.standard.net/ Business/2012/01/16/Ranchers-see-demise-of-livestock-branding Learn the Hows and Whys Behind Branding Cattle. (2017, September 28). Retrieved from: https://www.agribeef.com/blog/learn-the-howsand-whys-behind-branding-cattle/ Melchior, J. (2017, May 08). High-frequency tags: Easier data reading, happier cattle. Retrieved from: https://www.albertafarmexpress. ca/2017/05/08/high-frequency-tags-easier-data-reading-happier-cat tle/?module=tag1&pgtype=article&i= Nunn, L. (2017, October 24). How we got here with RFID, ultra-highfrequency eartags. Retrieved from: https://www.progressivecattle. com/topics/facilities-equipment/8066-how-we-got-here-with-rfidultra-high-frequency-eartags Raine, L. (2013, August 29). Long history behind ranchers' marking of livestock. Retrieved from: https://elkodaily.com/news/long-historybehind-ranchers-marking-of-livestock/article_056f6f3e-105c-11e3a035-0019bb2963f4.html Skaggs, R. (August 17th 2011). The U.S. National Animal Identification System (NAIS) & the U.S. Beef-Cattle Sector: A PostMortem Analysis of NAIS, Deploying RFID Cristina Turcu, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/16581. Available from: https://www.intechopen.com/ books/deploying-rfid-challenges-solutions-and-open-issues/the-us-national-animal-identification-system-nais-the-u-s-beef-cattlesector-a-post-mortem-analysis Swedberg, C. (2015, January 7). USDA Embarks on 18-Month UHF RFID Pilot for Tracking Cattle. Retrieved from http://www.rfidjournal.com/ articles/view?12579/

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