Community | January 03, 2011 | 40 comments

Body of former Pentagon official found in landfill

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Itsbatman_Durr
Delaware authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the recent discovery of the body of a former Pentagon official in a landfill, according to a statement released Monday by the Newark, Delaware, Police Department.
The Delaware medical examiner's office has ruled the death of 66-year-old John P. Wheeler a homicide.
Wheeler was discovered at Wilmington's Cherry Island Landfill on December 31.
Wheeler, who lived in New Castle, worked under three Republican presidents -- Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He served as a special assistant to the Air Force secretary from 2005 to 2008.
Among other things, he also served as head of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and was the first chairman of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
A staff officer in Vietnam, Wheeler was a graduate of West Point, as well as Harvard Business School and Yale Law School.
"We are asking for the public's assistance" in the case, Newark police spokesman Lt. Mark Farrall told CNN. "We don't know where the crime scene occurred. The body was dumped within our jurisdiction." Newark is about 12 miles southwest of Wilmington.
Farrall noted that Wheeler's body was seen jutting out of a garbage truck at the landfill by a spotter whose job it is to ensure that hazardous material is not dumped there.
Police believe Wheeler's body was most likely picked up by the truck at one of the first of ten specially designated dumpster pick-up spots before heading to the landfill.
Farrall said police do not know when Wheeler was last seen. He noted that Wheeler had been scheduled to take a train from Washington to Wilmington near the time of the death, though he dismissed reports that Wheeler had actually been seen on a train.
Farrall said an apparent dispute between Wheeler and a neighbor was "one facet of the investigation."
Wheeler's attorney, Bayard Marin, told CNN that his client had been involved in a lengthy legal fight with a couple building a new home across the street in a historic district of New Castle. Wheeler had adamantly opposed the new construction.
The dispute may have become contentious, but "I can't recall a confrontation," Marin said. "Everything seemed to be kept within normal bounds."
Veterans advocates offered statements of praise for the former official, who served in Vietnam.
"It is only fitting that we pause now and remember Jack Wheeler, who served his country honorably, then dedicated himself to ensuring that our nation's service members are always given the respect they deserve," said Jan Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
What Wheeler "cared about was civic values and civic virtue," wrote James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic.
"He was a complicated man of very intense (and sometimes changeable) friendships, passions, and causes. ... I feel terrible for his family and hope they will eventually find comfort in knowing how many important things he achieved."
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40 comments // Body of former Pentagon official found in landfill

  • bailey78
  • cantucwearebrothers
    • +1
      cantucwearebrothers  
    • Is a point trying to be made? In biblical times they threw someone unbefitting a burial into this huge burning pile of rubbish outside the city.

      I don't have high hopes that we'll be made privy to what actually happened.

    • 1 year ago
  • Itsbatman_Durr
    • +1
      Itsbatman_Durr  
    • cantucwearebrothers:

      yeah i am with you on that.. i am really interested in the DADT angle, as well as some hints of possible wikileaks involvement here.. to have a career such as his, serving the public good for real, and then to be thrown away literally into the trash is unconscionable.

    • 1 year ago
  • Ricky84
    • +3
      Ricky84  
    • He probably died looking for that sense of morality the Pentagon and the military industrial complex threw out years ago.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • thedirtman
    • +2
      thedirtman  
    • I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but one John P. Wheeler disappeared 10 days after the congressional repeal of DADT:

      http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/26/harvard-military-ban-rotc/

      Lifting the ROTC Ban
      By John P. Wheeler
      Published: Wednesday, May 26, 2010

      If someone told me during my cadet years at West Point that I would fall in love with Harvard and have warm friendship and regard for its current students, it would have been amazing data to process. For one thing, it would have meant that I would make it through Vietnam, a pretty good—and certainly not guaranteed—outcome.

      In retrospect, however, it is not surprising that the chapters of my life when I was a soldier and when I attended Harvard Business School are connected. Harvard, after all, has always played an instrumental role in protecting this nation.

      Soldiers have historically been considered to be highly valued students for the University’s investment. President Nathan M. Pusey ’28 personally saw to it that the name of an applicant from the war zone got “sent to the right quarters,” so that Bruns Grayson ’74 became the only Rhodes Scholar who served in Vietnam before college.

      When I had the signal opportunity to chair construction of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., Harvard graduates ensured that amidst the huge ten-year controversy its construction continued without fail. Each Harvard alumnus who participated gave hundreds of hours of devotion and time. The Atlantic Monthly Editor James M. Fallows ’70, a former President of The Harvard Crimson, in two hours wrote and placed an op-ed in the Washington Post to blow the whistle on an egregious move by opponents of the design. People with connections to Harvard were numerous among those who made the wall possible.

      Harvard’s professors also contribute to our armed forces in a decisive way. In defense lanes, I found myself working with Professor Matthew S. Meselson; it is little known that his work led directly to the still-standing U.S. policy to forego all use of biological weapons. He still works devotedly as teacher, scientist, and friend to public servants. Samuel R. Williamson parsed foreign policy and the causes of war for us rookies in the Pentagon. He still does.

      Though historically rooted, the ties between Harvard and our nation’s armed forces have been called into question lately, given the University’s 42 years of insistence that the Reserve Officer Training Corps cannot have a place on campus. I believe that Crimson editorial writer Brian J. Buldoc ’10’s opinion piece supporting lifting the ban spots the main obstacle: among faculty members, antipathy for the military is concomitant to the ban. In talks with Harvard students and graduates in last winter, I found that the majority favor lifting the ban on ROTC; they, and I, feel that the ban makes a negative statement about those in the military now, stigmatizing young officers for the sake of trying to combat the stigma that faces gay military personnel.

      I find that among gay military personnel there is little or no desire to injure fellow military. The view is that the case is for Congress to decide and is not the fault of young people who are either currently in the military or are committed to join after college. When Harvard refuses to allow ROTC on campus, it sends the message that service to one’s country is not a priority. At its core, Harvard’s ban “blames the warrior” for a policy issue. That is the same mistake the ban originally made in 1968, when ROTC was removed from campus as the result of protests against the war in Vietnam. Among those of us in the military on campus then, there was a sting of personal rejection that is still felt by ROTC candidates now.

      But our country has moved beyond “blaming the soldier” for issues of policy. Our country needs the best that Harvard has to offer in a new century of grave threats. Our country needs the Harvard of Elliot L. Richardson ’41, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., class of 1861, and Robert Gould Shaw.

      Commencement and the coming weeks are a fitting time to join with President Obama, to speak and act to end the ban on ROTC, and to affirm the message to all students and to our country that Harvard will always stand with our military in serving the nation.

      John P. Wheeler, MBA ’69, is Chairman of the American Warfighters Fund, a charity that mobilizes action to meet key unmet needs of active military, veterans, and their families. He served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970.

    • 1 year ago
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • mitekillem
  • ruthwilliam
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • eden49
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • bailey78
  • kennymotown
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • galwayman
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • artemis6
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • remanns
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • RossiTR
    • +2
      RossiTR  
    • Well, apparently he was secretary of the SEC, and assistant to the secretary of the Air Force, so it's either a Wall Street reveal or aliens.

    • 1 year ago
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • RossiTR
  • remanns
  • bailey78
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • bailey78
  • figgdimension
  • figgdimension
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • argus_man
  • eden49
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • eden49
  • miles_ahead
    • +6
      miles_ahead  
    • eden49:

      You can count on that. Nobody ends up in a garbage truck by accident. He probably knew too much about something that can no longer be covered up, and his testimony might have been valuable.

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • a619ko
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