Goodine a 'determined soldier'
By W. WINSTON SKINNER
winston@newnan.com
Pfc. Brandon D. Goodine, a former resident of Luthersville and graduate of Greenville High School, was buried Monday in McDonough.
Friends and family recalled Goodine as a soldier determined to serve his country – to make a difference. Goodine had told his cousin, Melissa Reeves, that he knew he might not return to Georgia alive.
Reeves said Goodine moved back to McDonough from Luthersville “two or three years ago.” She said military service was in her cousin’s mind long before he joined the Army. “It was something that he had planned to do,” Reeves said.
He had lived in McDonough before moving to Meriwether County and had been in the JROTC program there. Greenville High does not have JROTC.
“That was a dream that he had made early on. He didn’t decide he wanted to join infantry until later,” Reeves said. She said she thought his choice of infantry was “a spur of the moment decision.”
Goodine served with Bravo Troop, 73rd Cavalry of the 82nd Airborne stationed in Ft. Bragg, N.C.
Goodine was only 16 years old when he found out he was going to be a father. “A few people had told him he wouldn’t amount to anything,” Reeves remembered, explaining that those words made Goodine determined to make something of his life.
“He wanted to prove everybody wrong,” she said.
Goodine excelled in the military. His awards include the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, Afghan Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, Global War on Terror Service Medal, NATO Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge and Parachutist Badge.
“He had made every one of us so very proud of him,” Reeves, who still lives in Luthersville, said.
Kaye McCoy Tesch, a former Luthersville resident who now lives in Senoia, also recalled Goodine fondly. “I worked with him,” she said.
Tesch and Goodine both worked at Bubba Doo’s, a Luthersville convenience store. “He did the stocking and mopping,” Tesch recalled.
“He was very determined,” she remembered.
Goodine was already a father at that point. “He was trying to be a family man,” Tesch remembered.
“Brandon had always been a good kid. He was the type of person who – if anybody had a problem, he was going to make it be okay by making you laugh,” said Reeves, who described Goodine as “the comedian of the family.”
Goodine and another young man from Meriwether County, Taddius Jenkins, were remembered at ceremonies at Greenville High on Sunday.
Goodine’s funeral was Monday at Bethany Baptist Church in McDonough. Interment followed at Haisten/ Eastlawn Memorial Park in McDonough – with military honors.
His family has asked memorial contributions be made to the Fisher House Foundation, 111 Rockville Pike, Suite 420, Rockville, Md., 20850-5168 or the Wounded Warrior Project, P.O. Box 758517, Topeka, Kan., 66675.
Reeves said no one with a loved one in the military overseas wants to hear “that knock on the door.” Still, she said, Goodine’s family has great pride in his sacrifice.
“I think the family is – at this point – more proud than they are sad,” she said Sunday night. “Brandon died doing what he wanted to do. He wanted to fight for his country, and he wanted to prove himself.”
