OAN Staff James Meyers
8:18 AM – Monday, March 31, 2025
After a six-day search, Lithuanian officials announced they retrieved the U.S. armored vehicle that went missing carrying four U.S. Army soldiers but there is still no information about their whereabouts.
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“The armored vehicle was pulled ashore at 4:40 a.m., the towing operation is complete, Lithuanian Military Police and US investigators continue their work,” Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said Monday morning in a post on Facebook.
The soldiers were there conducting a training exercise at the massive General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė when they and their vehicle were reported missing in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the U.S. army said.
“Until the investigators have more details, we need to stay calm and focused, and keep in mind the sensitivity of the situation and the concerns of the soldiers’ families,” Šakalienė posted on Facebook.
She also mentioned to reporters that the first discovery of the four soldiers would be first reported by the U.S. Army.
This comes after NATO had to retract their statement last week, saying that the U.S. Soldiers were dead.
The soldiers, all from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were conducting tactical training when they went missing.
The six-day search had hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers and rescue personnel take part to find the soldiers through the forests and swampy terrain around Pabradė, which is just six miles west of the border with Belarus.
The M88 Hercules armored vehicle was found on Wednesday submerged in 15 feet of water.
A large-scale recovery operation got underway but “water, thick mud and soft ground around the site have complicated recovery efforts and have required specialized equipment to drain water from the side and stabilize the ground” in order to pull the 70-ton vehicle ashore, the army said.
In a Friday statement, the U.S. Army and Africa’s public affairs said that a “large capacity slurry pump, cranes, more than 30 tons of gravel, and subject matter experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are just some of the assets that arrived on site to assist with accessing the M88.”
“This will be a long and difficult … operation, but we are absolutely committed to bringing our soldiers home,” Curtis Taylor, commanding general of the 1st Armored Division, said in Friday’s statement.
Lithuania is known for hosting more than 1,000 U.S. troops for training exercises on a rotational basis.
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