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 soldiers, who were all part of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. A 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 swamp Sunday night the M88 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 initial search 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 Wednesday, 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, cranes and slurry pumps. The Polish Armed Forces volunteered a unit of 150 military engineers to help in the recovery. And over the weekend, a 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 a line to one of the hoist points on the M88 Hercules, the Army announced on social media. Teams were then able to pry it from the swamp.
Before the vehicle was extracted, the recovery team grew to include hundreds of personnel from multiple countries, the Army said.
“We cannot thank our Allies enough for everything they’ve done for us to help find our soldiers,” said Col. Jim Armstrong, commander of 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. “They see our soldiers as their own soldiers, and we are absolutely in this together. They have been extremely supportive of our families as well, knowing that they’re going through a tough time.”
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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