4 US Army soldiers go missing in Lithuania during training exercise, vehicle recovered
Search and recovery efforts are ongoing for four U.S. Army soldiers who went missing during a scheduled training exercise near Pabradė, Lithuania, according to the Army.
The soldiers, who are all based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, went missing early Tuesday during a “maintenance mission” to recover another a vehicle in the training area, the Army said.
The M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle the four soldiers were operating at the time was found on Wednesday submerged in water in a training area, the Army said.
“A very complicated search and rescue operation is underway,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said at a news conference Wednesday. “It will definitely take some time.”
Hundreds of U.S. and Lithuanian soldiers and law enforcement came together to search the “thick forests and swampy terrain,” the Army said in a statement Thursday.
But the conditions “complicated recovery efforts and have required specialized equipment to drain water from the side and stabilize the ground,” the Army said.
Engineers are building barriers out of dirt and sand “to create a contained area from which water can be pumped and mud dredged, providing emergency personnel on site access to the vehicle,” the Army said.
“It is very important for us to find those soldiers as soon as possible, because you all know how important is the presence of U.S. troops in Lithuania,” Lithuania’s chief of defense, Raimundas Vaiksnoras, said Wednesday. “Their soldiers are like our Lithuanian soldiers to us. So we spare no effort.”
“We will not rest till they are found,” Sakaliene said on social media Thursday.
The Army said it’s keeping the soldiers’ families updated on the search efforts.