Three of the four U.S. soldiers who were reported missing at a Lithuanian training site last week were found deceased, Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll said Monday.
The Army did not immediately release the names of the three soldiers, who were all part of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. The fourth soldier remains missing.
“We will not rest until the fourth and final soldier is found and brought home,” Driscoll said in a statement. “No words can truly capture the pain of this loss, but my deepest condolences go out to the families, friends, and fellow soldiers mourning their heroes.”
The confirmation came after recovery teams pulled from a Lithuanian peat bog Sunday night the M88A2 Hercules armored vehicle the soldiers were operating when they were reported missing March 25. The Lithuanian Defense Ministry announced on social media Sunday that both Lithuanian military police and U.S. investigators were working the site after the vehicle was dislodged.
At the time the soldiers were reported missing, they had been conducting a maintenance mission to recover another Army vehicle at a training area near Pabadre, Lithuania, U.S. Army Europe and Africa said in a release. The soldiers were deployed to Lithuania as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which has been sending rotations into Europe since Russia invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014.
The soldiers were permanently stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
“The Raider family is heartbroken over the tragic loss of our soldiers,” Col. Jim Armstrong, commander of 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement. “We are ensuring we provide the needed support to their families and our soldiers as we go through this grieving process.”
The initial search for the soldiers included military helicopters, Lithuanian diving teams and hundreds of U.S. and Lithuanian soldiers and law enforcement officers looking through thick forests and swampy terrain. On March 26, search teams found the soldiers’ vehicle 15 feet underwater.
What followed was an arduous, multiday effort to get to the vehicle, which continued to sink and be encased in mud as time went on. Officials brought in engineers, tons of gravel, excavators and slurry pumps. The Polish Armed Forces volunteered a unit of 150 military engineers to help in the recovery. And over the weekend, a U.S. Navy dive crew from Commander, Task Force 68, headquartered in Rota, Spain, arrived on site.
There was a breakthrough in the recovery effort Sunday when the Navy dive crew — after multiple failed attempts — attached steel cables to two of the hoist points on the M88A2 Hercules, the Army said. To get to the hoist points, divers maneuvered through layers of mud, clay and sediment, using a ground-penetrating radar provided by Lithuanian experts to find their way.
Two hours after the cables were attached, the vehicle was unearthed from the bog. By that time, the recovery team grew to include hundreds of personnel from multiple services and countries, the Army said.
Earlier on Sunday, a mass was held at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus and St. Ladislaus in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius to pray for the soldiers, their families and the recovery teams. American and German soldiers deployed to Lithuania attended the mass, as did U.S. and NATO military leaders, the Lithuanian minister of defense, the commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and the U.S. ambassador to Lithuania.
“We cannot thank our allies enough for everything they’ve done for us to help find our soldiers,” Armstrong said. “They see our soldiers as their own soldiers, and we are absolutely in this together.”
Recovery personnel remained on site Monday, searching for the fourth soldier. The Army, as well as Lithuanian authorities, are investigating the cause of the incident.
Nikki Wentling is a senior editor at Military Times. She’s reported on veterans and military communities for nearly a decade and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.
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