The Category 5 General

That's the general, the farmer turned career military man of 36 years, speaking his mind, propriety be damned.

Yes, he offers in an interview aboard his Black Hawk, his wife of 34 years, Beverly, has admonished him from time to time about that intimidating public manner, about "using the word 'b.s.' on TV," he says. (The recent usage came when a reporter told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that a Louisiana politician had complained there was too much red tape facing victims. Before Chertoff could answer, Honore snapped: "That's b.s.!")

But he also believes that "it takes a big personality to command the army east of the Mississippi River."

That's the region of the Army's 1st Division, and he is its commanding general, based in Atlanta, overseeing the preparations of units being deployed to Iraq. As leader of the Joint Task Force Katrina, he now commands all active-duty troops from all military branches devoted to the storm recovery operation. As of Saturday, those troops numbered 20,800, and more are coming. (National Guard troops number 50,000, but they are not under Honore's command.) And yes, he says he is a John Wayne fan, has seen all his movies. But he asserts that the troops in general are taking the battle (recovery) to the enemy (Katrina's destruction).

"This ain't about me," he says, there amid the troops. "This is about us."

With his leadership of U.S. armed forces in the post-Katrina operation, he burst onto the public stage with broadcast images of him deploying troops on New Orleans streets and growling, "Lower your weapons!"

A few days later, when he is heard barking at a soldier to "sling it" (meaning his M-16), he explains, "It's a zero-threat environment" and he doesn't want soldiers' demeanor to suggest "that the city is under siege."

And yet the water-logged streets of New Orleans are filled with troops, police, firefighters, FEMA recovery officials. With the vast majority of New Orleanians evacuated since the storm, the beleaguered city is one huge work zone.

In the thick of the recovery, a typical day (Saturday, for instance) took Honore from Camp Shelby to the USS Iwo Jima, anchored on the Mississippi River in New Orleans, where he met with other military leaders to strategize on the remaining search-and-rescue or recovery operations. He met also with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, the newly appointed lead federal representative here following the recall to Washington of embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown.

He has spoken to the media so often that he has honed his message, his preferred lines (which his aides say he devised himself). He repeatedly says, as he did in an appearance with Allen, that "the storm turned back technology 80 years" in the region by knocking out all communication systems and that the region's first responders were themselves victims.

And, fending off early criticism of the federal government's response to the crisis, he says, "It's like the first quarter of a football game. You're losing 25 to nothing. What in the hell is the coach gonna do?

"You can beat [the players] up and tell them how stupid and dumb they are and degrade them," he continues, or you can take a new tact, find new approaches and remember "there's still three quarters of the game left."