A compassionate career military man has met a horrific demise completely unfit for his exemplary record.
New Jersey garbage men found the body of famed Vietnam veteran John Wheeler III in a Delaware landfill, shocking loved ones of the serviceman who worked at high-level jobs for two presidents, cops said yesterday.
Wheeler, 66, was the first chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and led the charge to raise millions of dollars for the structure’s construction on Washington’s National Mall.
Cops ruled Wheeler’s death a homicide after his body was discovered in the hopper of a trash truck on New Year’s Eve at the Cherry Island Landfill.
“He was just not the sort of person who would wind up in a landfill,” said Wheeler’s lawyer, Bayard Marin.
The Vietnam Memorial Fund’s founder and president, Jan Scruggs, said Wheeler — who also had a home in Harlem — loved helping his fellow veterans and their families.
“I know how passionate he was about honoring all who serve their nation, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Scruggs said.
Investigators don’t know how long Wheeler, who lived in New Castle, Del., was missing, but a friend said he received an e-mail from the victim on Dec. 26.
The family didn’t notify authorities that he’d vanished because they were out of town, cops said.
The West Point alumnus and Yale Law School grad was the special assistant to the secretary of the Air Force from 2005 to 2008.
Wheeler’s expertise was in chemical and biological warfare, and he wrote manuals about those weapons — although he ardently opposed any US consideration to use them.
He was also a tireless warrior against impaired motorists, and served as CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving between 1985 and 1987.
“He was a very humble kind of guy, actually,” Marin said. “He was never the kind of person who would talk about all the wonderful things he did in his life.”
The sanitation truck that had Wheeler’s body had just made several stops, picking up commercial bins around Newark, before an employee made the grim discovery.
“A spotter observed a body coming out of a truck,” said Newark Police Lt. Mark Farrall.
Cops believe Wheeler’s body was originally placed in a commercial Dumpster that the truck picked up early in its route.
Wheeler’s wife, Katherine Klyce, runs her business — selling Cambodian silk products and accents — out of a luxury apartment building in Harlem.
A doorman at the West 124th Street building said he has hadn’t seen Klyce for several days and is still hanging on to a package addressed to her.
A resident at the building said last night, “John and Katherine were the sweetest couple you could ever know.”
The couple has been locked in a years-long legal battle with neighbors in New Castle, who wanted to build a new home across the street.
Wheeler and Klyce claimed the project would block their view, but a local preservation board granted Frank and Regina Marini permission to build their house.
Wheeler and Klyce still have an active lawsuit against their neighbors.
A smoke bomb was thrown into the Marinis’ home Tuesday, but investigators haven’t linked that attack to the dispute.
