Honore, cool hand in national crisis, retiring - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Honore, cool hand in national crisis, retiring

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore is trading in his uniform, but the Army’s top trainer of National Guard and Reserve troops will not be trading in his role as a trainer.

Honore, 60, relinquished command of First Army to promotable Maj. Gen. Thomas Miller, currently the G-3/5/7 at Forces Command, during a ceremony Jan. 11 at Fort McPherson, Ga. He will now transition from a 37-year career as a soldier to become a visiting professor at a university in Atlanta.

There, he hopes to work with the university to create a culture of preparedness in America and do some public speaking. He also is writing a book about lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, and hopes to have the book published in early summer, before the height of hurricane season.

Honore led the Defense Department’s response to the 2005 hurricane that devastated Mississippi and Louisiana, his home state.

“Back in the 1960s, we had a culture of preparedness,” Honore said. “We’ve [now] adopted concepts of ‘cheaper, better, quicker.’ In a culture of preparedness, people would be prepared because you expect disasters to happen.”

He said he hopes to develop a curriculum with the university and use what he learned in the Army to teach the nation about preparedness.

Katrina holds many lessons, Honore said.

“Homeland security starts at home and it goes down the street,” he said. “When you live in a high-risk area, the public has to be really coached hard by the local government to be prepared to evacuate at any time, particularly when there is an approaching storm. You should collaborate with not only your family but your neighbors.”

On the military side, active Army soldiers responding to the storm’s aftermath initially had difficulty communicating with National Guard troops on the ground in large part because of radio incompatibility, Honore said.

“We were challenged by the communication we had. The good news is the Army as well as the National Guard has invested in satellite communications.”

The soldiers also faced rescue and recovery missions in what were believed to be pretty contaminated areas, Honore said.

“We had oil residue in the water as troops moved around to help recover people and help recover remains,” he said. “That was some backbreaking work, and we eventually had to fly in the hip waders because [they’re] not in the Army inventory.”

Since Katrina, leaders at Northern Command, Army North and the Guard have done a lot of planning, and the Guard has increased its satellite communication capabilities, Honore said.

“I think it will make a big difference in the next response,” he said. “In a disaster you never have the capacity you need at the time you need it. That’s why it’s a disaster.”

When asked about preparedness against terrorist attacks, Honore said the military’s role is to respond, not prevent.

“The enemy has many options,” he said. “State and federal law dictate those things to be done by state and federal law enforcement agencies. Our job is to respond in the event of a catastrophic event or some other option the enemy would use to attack us. We try to play the away game and let the home team — law enforcement in the U.S. — take the home game.”

Before Honore became known for leading the Katrina recovery, his Army career took him around the globe. Most recently, he has led the effort to prepare Guard and Reserve soldiers for war.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve done at First Army in training the National Guard and Reserve,” he said.

The training conducted by First Army is ever more critical as Guard and Reserve soldiers are limited to 12-month mobilizations and undergo more individual training before arriving at the mobilization stations. in the next few months, First Army will train five Guard brigade combat teams and eight more right behind those, in addition to a combat aviation brigade.

To help with all the premobilization training soldiers must now accomplish, First Army is sending its trainers to local units, Honore said.

“Our objective is to try to get nine to 10 months in theater,” Honore said.

Right now, Honore said he’s confident that his trainers can get soldiers out the door in time to spend eight or nine months in theater.

“To get it to 10 is going to be hard, but we’re going to work toward that,” he said. “Again, not all unit missions are the same. Convoy security, that’s not hard to do. Our troops know how to do that. When you get to the more complicated mission, full spectrum operations training takes longer.”

To further improve the training Guard and Reserve soldiers receive before deploying, First Army has upgraded its facilities across the country in an effort to simulate realistic training.

The 10 training centers run by First Army can train up to 3,000 soldiers at any given time, he said.

“I’m very proud of that,” he said. “The other program I’m proud of is we developed the Army Warrior Training Program.”

The program calls on Guard and Reserve soldiers returning from deployments to volunteer to train the next batch of soldiers preparing to go.

“We recruit them to work for us and they’re fresh from Iraq and they train the soldiers preparing to go to Iraq,” he said. “It’s a national treasure to get these men and women to stay with us another year to train those who are going. Without them, we would not be able to do the job we do at First Army.”

About 9,000 trainers serve with First Army, Honore said. About 3,000 are active duty, 3,000 are from the Reserve and the rest are from the Warrior Training Program.

Honore said he’s very proud of how the Guard brigades, such as 1st Brigade, 34th Infantry Division, from Minnesota and 2nd Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, from Pennsylvania, performed in combat.

“All of those made us very proud after spending four or five months with us and then shipping over to Iraq,” he said. “It was a very rewarding experience and I will always remember that.”

Honore said he will miss wearing the uniform.

“For 37 years, I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to wear,” he said. “This has definitely been an experience of leaving a place better than we found it.”

DISCUSS: Honore's service to the National Guard and Reserves