john wayne to the rescue!

well not really. i was never a john wayne fan, but i think i like (or at least i like what i have seen and heard so far) this honore dude!

'Ragin Cajun' general becomes icon
Katrina pulled 'classic military maneuver'


Sunday, September 11, 2005; Posted: 7:54 p.m. EDT (23:54 GMT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- To troops, he's the "Ragin' Cajun," an affable but demanding general barking orders to resuscitate a drowning city. To his country, he's an icon of leadership in a land hungry for a leader after a hurricane exposed the nation's vulnerability to disasters.
With a can-do attitude and a cigar in hand, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore arrived after Hurricane Katrina and directed troops to point weapons down in respect for a stunned and stranded population lacking food, electricity and safety.
Each morning, Honore (pronounced AHN'-ur-ay) boards a Blackhawk helicopter at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, 100 miles north of New Orleans, for a humanitarian mission as head of the military's Joint Task Force Katrina.
Honore was born at home 57 years ago during a hurricane, his mother and an uncle always told him. He grew up poor in Lakeland, La., northwest of Baton Rouge, with 11 siblings, once winning a 4-H contest with the family's lone dairy cow, Weasel.
His daughter and friends live in New Orleans. As a child, he spent two weeks at Charity Hospital, where Katrina's flood waters trapped doctors and patients, after he was hit in the head with a baseball bat.
'I'm a soldier. You get what you see'
Stepping into a crisis that has drawn criticism of leaders at every level of government, Honore was praised for his compassionate approach to residents and his colorful bursts of instructions to troops, delivered in a Louisiana drawl with spits of profanity for emphasis.
"He's a man of action," said Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. "He knows the area, understands the people and doesn't take no for an answer."
Honore has won over even some of the government's harshest critics, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who blasted the Bush administration's initial response to his city's disaster.
"He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing, and people started moving," Nagin told a radio station. "I give the president some credit on this. He sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done."
The 6-foot-2 three-star general points out that John Wayne was an actor. "I'm a soldier. You get what you see," he said..................