5 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
The sudden disappearance of 4 American soldiers near Lithuania's border with Belarus received worldwide attention for both the urgency of the story and the mystery. The search and rescue, and the subsequent recovery efforts, have been described as an engineering feat of herculean proportions. How did this happen? What should we consider? Mike "Main Gun" Bajema served more than 20 years in the U.S. military, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army. As a retired Armor Officer, he commanded multiple units from Company to Battalion, which included not only tanks but M88s - the military vehicle at the center of the story. Mike helps explain the importance of the location where this incident took place, what potential dangers to consider, and what questions to ask moving forward to prevent it from happening again.
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1:00.0 | Four American soldiers go missing in Europe, near the border with one of our adversaries. |
1:05.6 | The latest development in this story reminds us all about what's at stake. I'm Jenna, and this is |
1:12.9 | smarter news. The story we're about to cover surface unexpectedly last week, and the headlines |
1:23.5 | were mysterious and pretty basic at the beginning. Four soldiers go missing in Lithuania, |
1:29.3 | not far from the border with Belarus, a key ally of Russia. Now a week later, we have some |
1:34.1 | knowledge as to what transpired, but still many, many questions. The soldiers drove out into |
1:39.1 | the darkness to help a vehicle immobilized in a training area. They drove a big armored vehicle, |
1:45.4 | an M88 Hercules, |
1:49.4 | which, like its name, is meant to be big and strong and tough and tow a tank if necessary. |
1:55.4 | We don't know what happened next, but somehow this vehicle becomes submerged in what was described to me as a sinkhole in a boggy, swampy, densely forested area. Now as we start a new week, |
2:03.1 | three of the soldiers' bodies have been discovered. The fourth one, as of this recording, |
2:08.3 | remains undiscovered, but the recovery effort continues. So what are we to make of all of this? |
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