A young, uniformed Sgt. Major Willie Mitchell, who served in the U.S. Army.
An 81-year-old Willie Mitchell talks about his community service, including working with Boy Scout Troop 133 and serving on Sampson County’s Veterans Council. (Cameron Vann|Sampson Independent)
The Richard Clinton chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution bestowed its Outstanding Volunteer Veteran award on local veteran Willie Mitchell,81, of Clinton earlier this fall.
Mitchell received this award, DAR members said, due to his outstanding work with veterans in the area and his community as a whole.
Mitchell was raised in Bainbridge, Ga. — one of 10 children — on his parents’ 300-acre farm,where they grew everything from peanuts to cotton.
“That was tough work, and I remember having to pick cotton as a kid, and I struggled to make 50 pounds when the older people around me would get 300 pounds a day,” Mitchell recalled during a recent interview about his honor and his military service.
It was that type of labor which made him realize he did not want to farm his whole life, leading him to join the military in 1963. He originally wanted to join the Navy, he said, but with his father’s persuasion, he enlisted in the Army, instead, a decision he said he was glad he made.
“The military gave me options that I would not have had if I would have stayed in Georgia. I would have either farmed or worked in a factory; there was no money for college with 10 kids in the family” said Mitchell.
The 81-year-old was in the Army from 1963- 1993, serving in everything from Vietnam to Desert Storm. He received numerous medals for his services, honors such as the Good Conduct Medal, the Army Accommodation Medal, and the Vietnam Medal, just to name a few.
Mitchell also credits the Army for a career that offered him the opportunity to see the world. Being stationed in several different countries, from Germany and Korea to Vietnam, and right here in the United States, offered its advantages, the award recipient noted, but he stressed that he and his wife enjoyed being stationed in Hawaii” best of all.
Germany, he stressed, was fun as well, but perhaps “a little strange at the time.”
After leaving the Army in 1993, Mitchell went to work at Tarheel Challenge, and he began to serve in another way — helping in the community.
One way he volunteers is through the Sampson County Veterans Council, of which he is a part. Through that council, he said, he is able to help local veterans with a wide variety of things, ranging from enrolling in beneficial programs offered by the VA to assisting veterans with financial needs such as paying bills or paying rent.
”I take great pride in being able to help those that risked their lives to serve our country” attested Mitchell.
Another person who is vital to the work at the Veterans Council is Ann Knowles, director of the the Sampson Veterans Affairs Office. Together, Mitchell said, they are a strong backbone for the veterans in the community.
When he’s not volunteering with veterans, Mitchell spends time at his church, Andrews Chapel of Clinton, where he has served as a deacon since 2014.
Through the church, he also runs Boy Scout Troop 133 .”We have a great group of kids there, with roughly 15 kids, and anything I can do to help keep young boys out of trouble and on the straight and narrow is good,” he said of his involvement.
Mitchell has two children, a daughter who followed her father into the Army and now resides in Stedman; and a son, who went into the Air Force and now lives in Florida. Mitchell was heavily involved in communications when in the military and pays homage to that in his spare time — he is a ham radio operator and is a member of the Scars Club here in Sampson County. He can also be found at the gym at least two days a week or taking a walk because he enjoys physical fitness.