A native son takes charge in Gulf Coast

As head of the First Army, the job fell to him. Before heading up First Army, the 34-year infantryman had done everything from commanding troops in Korea to developing readiness plans for improvised explosive devices in Iraq. The fact that he's a black Cajun, one of 11 children from Lakeland, La., hasn't hurt his efforts in dealing with the large numbers of blacks along the Gulf Coast. His daughter, out of town during the storm, and extended family live in and around New Orleans.

The general has become the man everybody wants to talk to, from Ted Koppel to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. On Thursday morning, Sen. Trent Lott managed to secure a piece of his time for a quick debrief. But his aides say Honoré isn't immune to exhaustion, and they spend much of their time protecting him. "He can snap in a minute," one aide explained.

A man of a thousand one-liners, Honoré has told soldiers to keep their guns down: "This isn't Iraq." Aides-de-camp says he knows how to cut through the thickets of famously murky Louisiana politics. At a recent staff meeting here at Camp Shelby, he growled, "We're not stuck on stupid." It became the saying of the day, written on a bulletin board.

Sometimes the comments sting, and more than one National Guardsman - especially the men who weathered the storm with the masses in the chaotic Superdome - has bristled at his commands and wondered about the source of his authority. But most soldiers - and, in turn, the vast numbers of volunteers and rescuers - seem invigorated by his drive.

"Soldiers like to see leaders who are more 'Do as I do' than 'Do as I say,' " says Staff Sgt. Sharon McBride, who is bivouacked at Camp Shelby. "During a time like this, everybody is looking for someone who has that authority."

Still, some experts say the potential for a backlash against troops can happen if the demands of the natural disaster recede and restlessness or lawlessness rise.

The presence of an active-duty three-star general overseeing 18,000 troops inside the United States in a pocket of scattered unrest is a test of posse comitatus, or "power of the county." Congress enacted the idea after the Civil War at the behest of Southern senators to end the occupation of the South by the US Army.

"There are things that can happen that would become a real ugly picture," says Craig Trebilcock, a York, Pa., lawyer and judge advocate general in the Army Reserve. "It's a real tightrope act."

So far, Honoré has walked it, declining this week to forcibly remove the 10,000 people still in New Orleans. "That is not something for federal troops," he says. "We're doing what we can today and tomorrow to help people and save lives."

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