'Unbearable Pain' as Body of 4th Missing Soldier Found

An accident during a training exercise in Lithuania last week claimed the lives of all four US soldiers in an M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicle, authorities have confirmed. Military officials said Tuesday afternoon that the body of the fourth soldier had been found, NBC News reports. On Monday, authorities said the bodies of three soldiers were found in the 70-ton vehicle after it was recovered from a peat bog. The US Army didn't say where the fourth soldier's body was found, but a senior official tells the New York Times it was near the vehicle. All four were from the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based in Georgia.

Officials believe the vehicle went off the road and sank in the bog, trapping the soldiers inside, after it was sent to recover another vehicle during a tactical training exercise. The search effort involved hundreds of US Army and Navy personnel, along with Lithuanian, Estonian, and Polish troops, the BBC reports. "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, 3rd Infantry Division commanding general, said in a statement. "Though we have received some closure, the world is darker without them." Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda visited the site of the accident and said the country's "heartfelt condolences go to our US allies and their people," the Times reports. (More Lithuania stories.)