On Monday, a woman approached a group of soldiers eating lunch at an IHOP near Fort Belvoir, Va. and began shouting at the soldiers and other patrons in an incident that was caught on video that has since gone viral. The Army garrison has described the incident as “racially charged.”
Fort Belvoir is now conducting an internal review of the incident after the black soldiers reported the white woman’s behavior upon returning to the Army garrison.
In the video, the woman said, “Just so you know, I came back in to give her the rest of my cash from my wallet because you guys are shitbags.”
The woman then sits down at the soldiers’ table, blocking one of them from getting up and leaving. The woman then argues with another patron who asked her to leave the soldiers alone.
The unidentified woman was eventually escorted out of the restaurant and as she left, she said to the soldiers and other patrons, “Are you the thin blue line? I get confused, are you BLM, are you Antifa, are you BLM?”
Responding to an American Military News request for comment, Fort Belvoir public affairs spokesman Joe Richard said, “On April 19th four Black Soldiers assigned to the Fort Belvoir Garrison were in a local restaurant (IHOP) at lunchtime. A female patron approached the soldiers and proceeded to engage them in general conversation. She offered to pay for their meal, a gesture commonly made to thank military personnel for their service. She placed $30 on their table, but took $24 back leaving $6 on the table as she left. She returned moments later asking them where was her money.”
“She became antagonistic claiming the Soldiers had taken her money and directed racially charged language at the soldiers,” Richard continued. “At this time a male patron intervened telling the woman to leave the Soldiers alone — she refused and confronted him. At that point the Soldiers made the decision to leave the building. They returned to Fort Belvoir and immediately reported the incident to their chain of command and the Garrison leadership.”
At least two of the soldiers involved in the incident took videos of the encounter, which were shared to the popular video-sharing app, TikTok, in three parts. The first and third parts showed the same portion of the incident from different angles as the woman approaches the soldiers’ table and sits down, blocking one of them in.
The second part of the video appears to show a separate encounter between the woman and the male patron who intervened and asked her to leave. In that encounter, the woman tells the patron, “Fine motherfucker, I will fucking drop you, you want to go? You want to go?”
Richard said the video of the incident shows the soldiers “maintained their composure and military bearing throughout this shocking incident” and that “they are well trained and discipline.”
Richard said the Army garrison has no specific information about the woman in the video or her motivation in confronting the soldiers.
