A soldier from Fort Hood, the huge military installation 45 minutes north of Austin in Killeen, is missing somewhere in the wilderness on post. He apparently got lost on a solo training exercise.

Hundreds of soldiers and civilians scoured the rugged Fort Hood terrain Monday for a soldier missing since he set out on a solo navigation exercise three days earlier.

Military Black Hawks and a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter searched for Sgt. Lawrence G. Sprader, who was last heard from Friday evening about an hour before he was supposed to have completed the six-hour mission.

In a second day of extensive searching, about 500 soldiers were poring over 25 square miles Monday of rolling terrain that included scrubland and wooded areas, said Col. Diane Battaglia, a III Corps spokeswoman at the Central Texas Army post. They were joined by searchers on all-terrain vehicles and horseback, as well as bloodhounds from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, she said.

But I love how he couldn’t have just gotten lost or broken his leg or become dehydrated. No, no. Instead it’s explained like this:

Sprader, who is assigned to the Army’s Noncommissioned Officer Academy, was carrying two canteens and a water backpack, she said.

“We do believe he is somewhere on the installation, and that area abuts up next to several public roads,” Battaglia said. “We believe he may not be right mentally or physically.”

There’s really gotta be a better way of putting that.

On the upside, I guess it is better than getting lost in Iraq.