Four missing U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division have all been found and confirmed to be dead, an Army spokesperson said, completing a week-long, all-hands search effort by U.S. and Lithuanian forces. Searchers found the fourth and final missing soldier Tuesday, about 24 hours after the first three were recovered when crews pulled their M88 Hercules from a deep bog in a Lithuanian swamp.
The four soldiers disappeared March 25 when their M88A2 armored recovery vehicle vanished after being dispatched to repair and tow another immobilized tactical vehicle during an exercise at the Pabradė training ground. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the fourth soldier’s recovery in a tweet.
In the week since the tank-like armored vehicle disappeared, U.S. Army and Lithuanian forces mobilized a search effort which quickly grew to hundreds of soldiers from the U.S., Lithuania and Poland, local experts with ground penetrating radar, Lithuanian search dogs, and a special U.S. Navy dive team from Commander Task Force-68 in Rota, Spain.
“The soldiers we have lost in this tragedy were not just soldiers. They were a part of our family. Our hearts are heavy with a sorrow that echoes across the whole Marne Division, both forward and at home,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division in Fort Stewart, Georgia. “We stand in grief with the families and loved ones of these extraordinary ‘Dogface Soldiers’ during this unimaginable time. But the search isn’t finished until everyone is home.”
As far-flung experts like the dive team and engineering units arrived at a nearby airport, U.S. Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters were waiting to fly them to the search site.
The M88A2 — among the largest tracked vehicles in the Army’s armor arsenal — was swallowed by the swampy peat bog on the Pabradė grounds. Why the huge vehicle ended up off of established roads was unclear and Army officials have said investigations of the accident are underway. Officials have said the M88A2 may have been encased in mud and black pond waters as deep as 15 feet, though reports have varied on that depth.
Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, the commander of the 1st Armored Division, which has led the search, said that the Navy divers set up communication links with another dive team in Hawaii that regularly works in mud and swamps with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
“They do a lot of recovery missions in heavy swamps and mud,” Taylor said. “They just completed a similar mission in Papua New Guinea. We had our dive team talking to their dive team about techniques of digging through the mud.”
To reach the vehicle, teams had to first shore up dryland around the acres bog and then begin to drain the swamp away with pumps and equipment until divers could descend into the “mud, clay, and sediment with zero visibility,” the Army said, to hook steel cables to the vehicle. Those cables, the Army said, were attached to two other M88A2s to pull the lost one up, but at least one of the tugs lost traction during the two-hour pull. Several bulldozers were then attached to provide additional grip.
With the M88 out of the mud, the dive team then began a grid search in the remainder of the bog to find the final missing soldier. The Army announced Tuesday morning the soldier had been found.
“We will not stop until we find our soldiers and return them to their families,” Taylor said.
UPDATE: 4/1/2025; This article has been updated with confirmation that the fourth and final missing U.S. soldier was found.
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