This is an excerpt from a 3/31/25 report about the missing soldiers

that is from CNN. I'm putting it up now and as others have noted the 4th soldier has now been found. I'm sure there will be retribution by Crumb The 1st against the Colonel speaking so forcefully about the importance of alliances. But decent people around the world see and know the actions of these rescuers and they will also know that any one of these people on their worst day is a million times the person Crumb The 1st or Hegseth will ever be on their best day.

The CNN story carries the byline of Haley Britzky and Natsha Bertrand with contribution from Jennifer Hansler. I am tough and critical about the media and I also try to point out good writing and give credit. These writers deserve that credit. The excerpt follows:

"The recovery effort involved “tremendous resources from Lithuania,” as well as “hundreds of service members from the US Army, US Navy, Lithuanian Armed Forces and the Polish Armed Forces—along with other elements from the Lithuanian government and civilian agencies.”

Indeed, other officials have pointed to the recovery operation as a prime example of the importance of relationships with US allies abroad — a position that has been strained in recent weeks as Trump administration officials have railed against partner nations for not doing enough, largely regarding the war in Ukraine and NATO funding.

An Army official told CNN that troops on the ground “see things that others might not” regarding working with allies, and the recovery operation of the last few days has only further shown that.

“For us, that’s politics, that’s not our bailiwick. … For those that say our allies aren’t doing enough, those are people that didn’t see this,” the official said. “Those are people that didn’t pay attention to this, that weren’t watching. For all of us soldier, I think if I was the one in that Hercules, Lithuania is the country I would want helping to bring me home to my family.”

After finding the submerged vehicle, Lithuanian divers were on the scene “very rapidly,” Maj. Nicholas Chopp, spokesman for US Army Europe and Africa, told CNN. Poland also started mobilizing dozens of engineers and sappers, or combat engineers.

“There was literally chief of defense to chief of defense conversations happening between Lithuania and Poland” to coordinate support, Chopp said. He added that the Lithuanian defense minister and prime Minister were on the ground at the recovery site nearly every day, if not daily, to “come talk to the rescuers on the ground and say, ‘What do you need that you don’t have?’”

“It was an entire country bent towards these efforts,” he said.

The Army’s release on Monday said Lithuania provided helicopters, drones, fixed-wing aircraft, and search and rescue personnel, as well as excavators, pumps to get water out of the bog, various technical experts, and “other heavy construction equipment.” The Army official said Lithuania has not asked to be reimbursed for their efforts in the recovery, saying everything they’ve done “is out of pocket.”

The release on Monday also said the Archbishop Metropolitan of Vilnius “led a mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus and St. Ladislaus of Vilnius, March 30, to pray for the four Soldiers, their families, and those conducting recovery operations.”

Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, told CNN that allies helping allies is “what an alliance is all about.”


https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/31/politics/bodies-recovered-soldiers-lithuania/index.html