In the 1970s, he was a senior planner for Amtrak, official of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
In the 1990s, he was an activist for the deaf and for environmental concerns, and in the 2000s, he was an aide to the George W. Bush administration and consultant to the Mitre Corporation.
On December 28th, 2010, a man matching his description threw smoke bombs into a house neighboring Wheeler's in New Castle.
Five days after the delivery, the family received a telegram that his father was missing in action in the Battle of the Bulge.
[4] After graduation from West Point, he was a fire control platoon leader at a MIM-14 Nike-Hercules base at Franklin Lakes, New Jersey from 1966 to 1967.
From 1967 to 1969, he was a graduate student at Harvard Business School spending the summer of 1968 as a systems analyst for the Office of Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C. From 1969 to 1970, he served in a non-combat position at Long Binh in Vietnam.
From 1972 to 1975 he attended law school at Yale University becoming a clerk for George E. MacKinnon in 1975–76 and an associate for Shea & Gardner in 1976–1978.
Working with Jan Scruggs and Robert W. Doubek, he supported the controversial Maya Lin design, which was opposed by Ross Perot and Jim Webb, who both tried to oust him as chairman of the memorial.
Wheeler worked to address their issues by adding The Three Soldiers sculpture by Frederick Hart to the memorial.
In 1983, Carlton Sherwood ran a four-part series on WDVM-TV (now WUSA) "Vietnam Memorial: A Broken Promise?"
Sherwood cast aspersions on Wheeler's career, questioning his decision not to go directly to Vietnam out of West Point and noting he had been disciplined shortly after arriving there in 1969 for "misappropriation" of government property.
In the 1988 television film To Heal a Nation about the construction of the Vietnam Memorial, Wheeler was played by Marshall Colt, four years his junior and the former co-star with James Arness in the crime drama McClain's Law.
On November 11, 1988, Wheeler introduced President Reagan at the Memorial before the latter observed his final Veterans' Day there.
[8] Discussion over Wheeler's death – likely in Delaware – on December 30, 2010, is complicated by his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which may explain his unusual actions in the preceding days.
"[9] Authorities have labeled his death a homicide,[1] though it is unknown if he was killed spontaneously by a stranger, or if he was the target of a political assassination.
[12] According to a Philadelphia TV station and the Radio Times, Wheeler's phone was found inside the new house in January 2011, though police would not confirm this.
The owner of the store took note of his clothes, which were dirty, and did not include a coat for the cold temperature that morning.
[8] At 3:30 p.m., Wheeler walked into a nearby Small Business Administration office, and asked for a ride to Philadelphia.
[9][15] Police later claimed that "all the stops made Friday (December 31) by the garbage truck before it arrived at the landfill involved large commercial disposal bins in Newark".
[16] The truck started its route before 4:30 a.m. and arrived at the landfill at 10 a.m., "after making 10 stops at a variety of businesses, including a public library, a seniors' complex, and a car dealership", locations which were mostly covered by cameras.
[8][10] On January 28, 2011, the Delaware state medical examiner's office reported Wheeler's cause of death as assault and blunt force trauma, without elaboration.