The bodies of three American soldiers who went missing for six days were found in a muddy swamp near Pablod, Lithuania.
The rescue team is still looking for a fourth soldier.
“Soldiers weren’t the only soldiers we lost in this tragedy. They were part of our family…but the search wasn’t over until everyone was home,” Major Christopher Norry said in a statement issued by US Army Europe and Africa.
The complex search and rescue missions include Lithuanian and Polish troops in an effort to require “risqué resources,” in addition to the US Army and Navy, the statement said.
The four soldiers went missing on the morning of March 25th and worked at the M88A2 Hercules. This is a large armored vehicle designed to retrieve damaged tanks and other vehicles from the battlefield.
They were “in charge of their mission to repair and tow the tactical vehicles,” the statement said.
The soldier’s car was found to have been sinking in a marsh near the border with Belarus on early March 26th. Pulling it out of the mud was a difficult mission.
The US Navy divers were brought to hook cables into the sinking vehicle and had to pilot “through thick layers of mud, clay and sediment, which have zero visibility,” the statement said.
These cables were then connected to two other M88A2 Hercules and began to slide into the marsh, with several bulldozers being called.
The US military said it includes other heavy construction equipment, including excavators, floodgates, and slurry pumps, as well as technical experts and “hundreds of tons of gravel and earth.”
On Sunday, soldiers, military commanders and Lithuanian defense minister attended a mass held in the capital, Vilnius.
“Lithuania will grieve along with the American nation,” country President Gitanas Nausda wrote in X.
“Please accept my sincere sadness and accept it to the people of Lithuania, to you, to the loved ones of those who have lost their lives, and to all of the United States of America,” he said.
As a member of the NATO and the EU, Lithuania is the foundation of more than 1,000 American troops stationed in the rotation.
The identities of the four soldiers assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, were withheld until close relatives were notified.
They were deployed in Lithuania as part of the Atlantic solution operation – response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their home is Fort Stewart, the US state of Georgia.
The US Army and Lithuanian authorities are investigating the cause of the accident.
