The family, not being to read or write English, and also due to their mother's illness which prohibited her from immigration, were put into financial hardship.

[7][3] In 1938 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel and began teaching engineering in the Kaunas war school.

[1][2][8][4] In 1941, Vitkus was a staff member of the Lithuanian Activist Front in Vilnius, which organized an uprising on June 22, 1941.

To avoid being taken into the Nazi army, his close friend organized for him to work in the department of apartments and property.

Due to his prominence as an officer and underground staff member and teacher, he was later increasingly unsuccessfully persecuted by Soviet agents.

Vitkus also prepared a partisan statute, as well as signed a decree announcing the main principles of the restoration of Lithuania and its independence.

He modeled the partisans in the form of the Lithuanian army, enforcing strict discipline as well as the use of codenames, uniforms, as well as creating a mobilization plan.

In independent Lithuania in 1997, via the president's decree, Vitkus was also awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis, 1st degree.

Multiple memorials were built in his home village, his death place, as well as in Vilnius, Marijampolė, Kaunas (near the war school and engineers' headquarters), and Varėna District.