A video of Marine body bearers from Barracks Washington trudging through high floodwaters in their dress blue uniforms to help stranded motorists on Thursday has gone viral.
“The Marines are going to help us? We just got stuck,” TikTok user Virginia Waller-Torres asks in the video as the Marines made their way from a nearby bus to the car. “Oh my God, this is the most American thing ever.”
Two of the Marines involved in the water rescue, Cpls. Jared Tosner and Mitchell Wojtowicz, met with Waller-Torres Monday, according to the Marine Corps.
They presented her with a unit coin and she thanked them for their service that day, according to the Marine Barracks Washington 8th & I Facebook page.
Thursday’s flash flood warning had been issued by the National Weather Service for the Arlington, Virginia, area around 3 p.m., due to heavy thunderstorms in the area.
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♬ People Help the People - Birdy
Four Marine body bearers can be seen through the car’s back window smiling as they push the car in the pouring rain.
The small body bearer unit’s mission is to conduct funerals at Arlington National Cemetery and other D.C. area cemeteries, as well as perform funerals for dignified heads of state and government.
Marine body bearers “have earned their reputation, and as all Marines do, they set high standards and train hard to exceed them,” according to a Marine news article.
In response to comments on her TikTok video, Waller-Torres wrote, “As an immigrant, we don’t usually see this in the country I grew up in.
“I am so grateful for this country and its Marines and military.”
The video had almost 900,000 views and 50,000 shares on TikTok as of Wednesday.
At least one other motorist had been stuck in the high flood waters in Arlington, Virginia, that day, near Columbia Pike, prompting a water rescue operation by local firefighters, according to ARLNow.
