Hechler held a series of minor appointed positions in the federal civil service until he was drafted into the United States Army during World War II in July, 1942.

[5] After graduation from Armored Force Officer Candidate School, he was assigned as a combat historian in the European Theater of Operations.

Hechler helped chronicle the liberation of France, the 1944 Normandy invasion, Battle of the Bulge, and entrance into Nazi Germany.

He found Captain Willi Bratge, whom a German military court had sentenced to death in absentia because he had been captured, and spent a week with him in the Remagen area learning about details of the battle.

[6] After the war ended, he was assigned to interview many of the defendants prior to the Nuremberg Trials, including Hermann Göring.

(Hechler recorded him making a delusional offer to join the American side and "knock hell out of the Russians.

")[7] Next Hechler was a White House assistant to Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953 and Research Director for Adlai Stevenson's 1956 Presidential campaign.

He ran for the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia's Fourth Congressional District, which then included Huntington and many unionized mill towns along the Ohio River north of that industrial city, in 1958.

His term as Secretary of State is most known for his successful prosecution of Johnie Owens, who sold his position as Sheriff of Mingo County for $100,000 and was sentenced to fourteen years in federal prison.

He also persuaded the West Virginia State Legislature to require that candidates publicly register loans, with specific terms of repayment.

This time, he won the Democratic primary by a plurality, but lost the general election to Republican Betty Ireland.

On June 23, 2009, Hechler, then aged 94, participated in a protest near mountaintop removal mining sites in the West Virginia coalfields in the Coal River valley along with others.

[15][16] Hechler indicated that his primary goal in entering the race was to draw attention to what he viewed as the devastating impact of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia.

"[1] In July 2016, Hechler was placed into hospice care in Romney, West Virginia, after suffering from a recurring lung infection.