Bodies of 3 U.S. Soldiers Recovered from Swamp in Lithuania, Search for Last Missing Soldier Ongoing
A U.S. Navy dive team prepares a floating platform before
diving to assist in the recovery of a U.S. Army M88 Hercules recovery vehicle
submerged under several meters of water in a swamp near a training area in
Pabradė, Lithuania, March 30, 2025. (U.S. Army photo by Specialist Trevor
Wilson)
Posted: April 1, 2025 --- Military.com | By Steve
Beynon
Published March 31, 2025, at 1:25pm ET
The bodies of 3 American soldiers who had been missing
since last week after their armored vehicle became trapped in deep mud during a
military exercise in Lithuania have been recovered. A search for the 4th soldier remained underway. The soldiers
were aboard an M88A2 Hercules, a hulking armored recovery
vehicle designed to tow tanks and other heavy machinery, when it became
submerged in a bog last Tuesday, military officials said.
The troops were believed to have been unable to escape as
the vehicle was swallowed by the mire. Following an arduous multinational
recovery operation involving some 200 U.S., Lithuanian and Polish forces, the
vehicle was extracted Sunday evening, Lithuania's Defense Ministry said. The
effort required excavators and construction machinery, as well as hundreds of
tons of gravel and sand to reinforce the unstable terrain. U.S. Navy divers
secured cables to the submerged vehicle, enabling crews to pull it from the
mud.
Read Next: American Veterans Fighting in Ukraine Struggle with the
Politics of Abandonment
"The soldiers we have lost in this tragedy were not just soldiers -- they were a part of our family," Major General (O8, 2-star) Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division Commanding General, said. "The search isn't finished until everyone is home." The operation was fraught with challenges. The swampy terrain complicated efforts to drain water and excavate mud from around the vehicle. Over the weekend, the recovery effort suffered a major setback when a landslide further destabilized the ground, Lithuania's Defense Minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, said.
"It is highly complex trying to get to the vehicle itself with the terrain out here and where the M88 is sitting in a bog swamp-like area, below the waterline. So not only are we dealing with the terrain, a lot of mud that is over top of the vehicle, but also the fact that it's 70 tons that we're trying to recover out of a swamp or bog," Brigadier General (O7, 1-star) John Lloyd, Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division, said.
All 4 soldiers were from 1stArmored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, based out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. The division deployed to Europe in January as part of the Pentagon's bolstering of NATO's front lines amid Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. The troops were a part of a relatively routine training exercise near Pabradė, a city near the border of Belarus -- a key Russian ally. The identities of the soldiers had not been released Monday. The Army and other military services typically wait to release that information until the next of kin has been notified.
