“I got to do a lot of different jobs and live in a lot of different places,” security guard Greg Goode said. After originally going to school to become a music teacher Mr. Goode left college to enlist in the Army. Through his time in the Army, he was faced with many difficult tasks and high level responsibilities.
Now, after 24 years of service Mr. Goode is retired and has moved on to a new chapter in his life as a high school security guard. “While I was at school, I decided my parents didn’t need to pay for school, so I joined the National Guard. I thought that I should pay off the previous student loans that I had, so I went active duty,” Mr. Goode said.
Deciding to change his path of life, Goode was able to be a part of a lot of intense experiences throughout his life. Goode was a military policeman and a military police investigator for the Army. During that time he was sent to many different places to work such as Germany, South Korea, Bosnia, Croatia and Afghanistan.
“Everything happens when you’re deployed,” Mr. Goode said. From fire fights to helping the injured to paying people for information, Mr. Goode did it all. His horizons broadened throughout his time and he is now able to safely reminisce on many incredible experiences.
As Source Operations officer, one of Mr. Goode’s responsibilities was going into unknown villages and extracting information. “You have to go into the village, usually with not a big crowd of soldiers, you have to go in like you’re a civilian like you’re doing work with them to help them out, but meanwhile you are meeting with a guy that is giving you information about what terrorists are doing,” Mr. Goode said. Mr. Goode was sent in under a fake identity to not seem suspicious.
He was also sent in there with no protection from other soldiers, weapons or equipment. This was a very dangerous job to have because the people that had the information could be threatening.
His last 11 years on duty were spent as a special agent in charge of counter intelligence at the Pentagon. This is where Mr. Goode was in charge of his own group of soldiers. He was in charge of signing off on his group’s mission plans. If they wanted to leave lines or do anything it had to be run by him first. This was a rough position for Mr. Goode to be in because he knew that if anything happened to his soldier while they were out it would be his fault, but thankfully none of Mr. Goode’s direct soldiers were harmed. After retirement from the Army he decided it was time to look for a new career path that would interest him. “I had been away from high schools and the kids so I decided to take the job in security so I could be close and interact with the kids. It’s been fun,” Mr. Goode said. Coming back to Mr. Goode’s roots he chose to work at ELHS as a new hire last year. He wanted to be around kids and be able to interact with them every day. This job gave him that opportunity.
Now that he is back working in school systems, Mr. Goode plans to eventually get an alternative certification for teaching. He hopes to be able to teach history or special education. His experience in the Army helped him learn from many different people and makes him excited to get into the classroom one day to be able to learn more.
