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Body of fourth US soldier who vanished in Lithuania during training exercise recovered after extensive search
The bodies of four soldiers who died on a training exercise in Lithuania — just a few miles from the border of Russian ally Belarus — have all been recovered.
The remains of the final soldier was found near a Lithuanian military base in Pabradė after a weeklong operation that combed through thick forest and swampland, the US Army announced Tuesday.
The soldier’s body was found a day after the remains of the three others were recovered.
They are believed to have drowned when the armored vehicle they were riding in sank in a peat bog.
The soldiers were a part of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, and vanished on March 25 during a training operation.
The cause of the accident remains under investigation, according to US Army officials.
“This past week has been devastating. Today our hearts bear the weight of an unbearable pain with the loss of our final Dogface Soldier,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, who leads the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement.
“Though we have received some closure, the world is darker without them.”
The deadly training accident comes as tensions have been rising between Lithuania – one of NATO’s smallest members – and Russia.
Just two weeks ago, Lithuania announced it was laying mines along its borders with Russian ally Belarus over fears that the Kremlin could expand on its offensive in Ukraine with an incursion into NATO territory.
Fellow Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia — all of whom are former Soviet states — are also ramping up their defenses
There has been no indication, however, that the American deaths had anything to do with those tensions.
The US troops were training in an M88A2 Armored-Recovery Vehicle, a 63-ton machine equipped with a crane used to remove damaged or broken-down armored vehicles from the battlefield.
American troops have been training in the Baltic border region to practice operations in its swampy, heavily forested terrain.
There are about 16,000 US troops currently deployed in the area, with 14,000 in neighboring Poland, 1,000 in Lithuania, and 700 in Estonia.
