Just Stay Out Of His Way

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Honoré was born during a hurricane, the devastating storm of 1947 that marched from the Atlantic across the Gulf of Mexico, killing 51 in its wake. He grew up not far from New Orleans, in Lakeland, La., then a segregated town. Now the second highest ranking African American in the Army (after General William Ward), Honoré worked on the Department of Defense response to Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and commanded rescue efforts during the 2001 floods in Mozambique. Until Katrina hit, he was improving ways of training recruits bound for Iraq. He retains emotional ties to the Big Easy, with fond memories of two summers spent with relatives there, playing in the streets, absorbing the blues, flirting with the city's devil-may-care attitude. Now those same streets are flooded with oil and filth. "It's heartbreaking," he says inside a Black Hawk helicopter over the city.

On the Gulf Coast in the past two weeks, Honoré has been a red-tape-cutting force of nature. But his no-nonsense style can also be perceived as abusive. On the Joint Staff, where Honoré was deputy operations chief, he could be too gung-ho. Says a former associate: "By his personality and language, Honoré would sometimes amplify a crisis rather than help tamp it down." But if being impolitic is a problem, Honoré has a time-tested solution: resume your stride and take care of business. --By Brian Bennett/New Orleans. With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Washington