Former Pentagon official found dead in a landfill

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/05/delaware.pentagon.official.death/index.html?hpt=C2

This is a strange case.

 

it mentioned that he was an advocate for Vietnam vets. i thought i also read that he played a big part in getting the memorial wall up.

 

He was the chief executive of the Vietnam Memorial Fund, and was the first chairman of Mothers against Drunk Driving. From that story, the man was a quality human being and completely undeserving of such a ignominious end. There would seem to be more fascinating details to come.

 

He was all that, and if you read Rick Atkinson's utterly brilliant "The Long Gray Line", Wheeler was one of the featured characters.

Atkinson's book chronicles Wheeler's involvement in building the Vietnam memorial, as well as the fact he was once engaged to Ray Kroc's daughter and the scion (scionness?) of the McDonald's fortune.

A strange and horrible case all the way around.

 

James Fallows wrote about him on his Atlantic blog.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/john-p-wheeler-iii/68755/