Born in Pelzer, South Carolina, Wesley served in the Army Air Corps (later Army Air Forces, then United States Air Force) from October 21, 1930 to 1960. He joined the army first in artillery but was later accepted into the Twenty-Seventh Bomb Group of the Army Air Corps at Barksdale Field in Bossier City, Louisiana. On November 1, 1936, his unit was ordered to the Philippine Islands, where he fought in the Battle of Bataan. Captured by the Japanese, he spent the rest of the conflict in prisoner of war camps. At war's end he was a sergeant. After retiring from the U.S. Air Force in 1960, he worked as an accountant.