SALUTE TO VETERANS 2025: Special Forces sergeant shares insights on Vietnam and anti-war protests

(DAILY AMERICAN REPUBLIC, Nov. 19, 1965) —Warren Whitworth, a Poplar Bluffian who has seen a year of the war in Viet Nam firsthand, is spending a month’s leave here with his father, Eldon Whitworth.

A sergeant with the Army Special Forces, young Whitworth will leave in early December for assignment to Ft. Bragg, N.C., the Special Warfare center where the Army trains its elite Special Forces units.

Whitworth graduated from Poplar Bluff High School in 1962 and enlisted in service in December of that year.

A demolitions specialist with cross training as a medic and heavy weapons man, Whitworth was seriously wounded last April and spent two weeks in a Saigon hospital.

As a result of that particular action, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for Valor. His other decorations include a Purple Heart, the Vietnamese Campaign Ribbon and Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He has received less serious wounds several times.

Whitworth is trained in the Vietnamese language and said he spent most of his time living and working with the people in remote areas.

“Our main goal there is winning the support of the people and making them feel secure,” he said.

The 21-year-old soldier said most of the experienced fighting men in Viet Nam are not bothered by the anti-war demonstrators and “draft card burners” in this country. He said most of his buddies realize the protesters comprise only a small minority of U.S. citizens.

“I’m glad those type of people aren’t in Viet Nam. We’d have no place for them and don’t want them over there,” Whitworth said.

He said he hopes to get back to Viet Nam early next year. His Army enlistment expires on Dec. 3, 1966, and Whitworth said he plans to leave the service and go to college.

“I’d like to go back to school,” Whitworth said, “unless the war worsens so much that the Special Forces really need men. Then I might stay in for a while longer. Our Special Forces men are the best fighting men in the world and we need more like them.”

Whitworth said many of the conventional troops being sent into combat in recent weeks lack proper training in guerrilla tactics.

“This is a special kind of war and the terrain and other problems are entirely different from what most of the younger and more inexperienced men expect,” he said. “The disease is terrific and the untrained men find it impossible to eat the native food.

“We’ve got to have more men over there who are capable of living with the people and winning their support.”