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I love Gary Busey's role as General Joe Wheeler in the movie Rough Riders. While he didn't have Wheeler's beard and was a little tall for the role, Busey did an excellent job in portraying an officer who could care less about the detailed, complex plans drawn up by his superiors and cared deeply about the men under his command.

In the movie, when Wheeler calls the Spanish "Yankees" and is corrected by his son, who is his aide, he says, "Okay, Spanish Yankees then".

One of Wheeler's best lines comes during the fighting in Cuba, when his horse was shot. He hits the ground, sits up, and says, "Whoo, thirty years since I've had a horse shot out from under me and it's still exciting." He then finishes off the horse with a round from his pistol and glares at his son, who is standing there dumbfounded, and barks, "Take your hat off, boy".

i agree. i, too, am prone to "put on" ROUGH RIDERS to watch, from time to time.

that whole movie was FUN, imVho. (one wonders if the reason that the movie was NOT "pushed" by the studios/distributors/media was because the southland/southerners were HONESTLY portrayed???)

btw, GEN Wheeler DID take his son (a USMA 3d classman at the time. and yes, he DID wear "cadet gray" in Cuba.) to Cuba with him, as a "cadet aide".

GEN Wheeler also took a "manservant" with him, "who was 'an old family retainer', to care for my needs. i would not care to be a burden to anyone while there, due to the infirmities of advancing age".

free dixie,sw