Teddy Roosevelt suffered from illness and the loss of his wife, and he rode with the Rough Riders.

FORBES: Gingrich: Authentic Prodigal Son

As a colonel leading a unit of (horseless) cavalry volunteers, known as the Rough Riders, he turned a relatively minor role in the San Juan battle into a national legend powerful enough to sweep him to the presidency.

ECONOMIST: THE WAR OF 1898

Before he became the youngest ever President of the United States, Roosevelt enjoyed a promising political career as a state assemblyman and the New York City police commissioner before decamping to the military, where he served as a Naval Secretary for a year and organized the volunteer army the Rough Riders who fought in Cuba.

FORBES: Hillary Goes Private: What's Next For America's Most Powerful Woman?

For American society as a whole, and for the rest of the world, there is the reassuring paradox that the world's strongest power has become a society that now elevates for admiration not square-chinned rough riders, but victims.

ECONOMIST: History