Crew chief paints Camp Cooke yellow

Story and Photos by Sgt. Merrion LaSonde

122nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

printed in the Coalition Scimitar, Baghdad, Iraq; May 21, 2004; Page 9

also available online:

1st Cavalry Division

CAMP COOKE, Baghdad — It is only 98 degrees outside, but the temperature reflecting off the asphalt tarmac makes it feel like 110 degrees. Still, Spc. Delvin Goode smiles. Many splotches of yellow paint adorn his coveralls reflecting his sunny personality and demeanor.

Goode is with the Company D “Outlaws”, of 2nd Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. Aside from his every day job as a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic, he is also an accomplished artist with a bachelor’s degree in art from Florida State University, in Tallahassee, Fla.

“The sergeant major asked me to paint a mural,” Goode said. The mural he painted stretches across several concrete barriers located on the airfield at Camp Cooke. It includes the logos of several First Team aviation groups including the new “Outlaw” logo redesigned by Goode.

“When I was an orderly room clerk back at Fort Hood, I let the first sergeant know that I had some artistic talent,” Goode said. The original Delta Co. logo “was just a black bird.’ He created the Stetson-wearing gunslinger “because we are the ‘Outlaws’.”

Goode hails from a long line of military service members. “My father is a retired Air Force first sergeant,” Goode said. “My sister is a petty officer 3rd class in the Navy and I have a lot of uncles and cousins who are Marines.” However, prior to the September 11 attacks, the 26-year-old Fort Walton Beach, Fla. native, had no intention of joining the military.

“I went to FSU and got my degree intending to go into business with my brother,” he said. “We opened a commissioned art business together, but then 9/11 happened. My sister got deployed so I decided to join up, too.”

Being a Blackhawk mechanic and creating works of art are just two items on Goode’s seemingly endless list of lifetime goals.

“I find out in about a week whether or not I am going to OCS,” Goode said. “I am waiting on the board. I was told ‘get a degree, be a pilot’. I come from a long line of non-commissioned officers, but no commissioned officers.”

As an officer, Goode also plans to apply his ‘can do’ attitude to the administrative side of the military house. “I want to be (an officer in the quartermaster corps). Back at Fort Hood, I had the opportunity to help some Soldiers get some things they needed. I saw how the administrative process affects the Soldiers and that is where I want to be, at first.”

When Goode completes all of his goals in the military, he plans to return to teaching. He taught college-level art classes at FSU and visually impaired high school teens before joining the military.

One of his friends was working with the blind and Goode asked one of the teachers if he could teach them how to paint.

“Once she found out I was serious, I would go over there once a week, stretch huge canvases for them and teach them about colors,” Goode said. “I would put stuff on the canvas, like sand and beads, to give them some textures to work with. It was the most fun I ever had painting.”

He explained that teaching art to the blind and military command fit perfectly into what he likes doing most; helping people realize they can do things that they never thought were possible.