Captain Charles Good passed away at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital
this morning. The 62 year old suffered two heart attacks in 24 hours. Recently
Capt. Charlie Good had become a household name and a mainstay in front of the
Supreme Court where he and his wife had been protesting her termination as a
school warden. And while that’s where it ended – Charlie Good lived
a remarkable life and today Keith Swift took a quick look back.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Capt. Charles Good was a proud and controversial soldier, both on the battlefield
and in the street.
Hirian Good, Wife of Hirian Good
“He was a warrior, Shaka Zulu he liked to make me call him that because
if he knows he is right, he nuh care, he will fight until he gets it done.”
His storied military career started in the Honduras Armed Forces at age 18.
Charlie Good later enlisted in the Belize Police Special Force and in 1978 it
became the Belize Defense Force. He worked his way up in the BDF from a 2nd 
Lt. to Captain in 1982 – working with the CIA on covert drug operations.
Goldburne Adolphus, Son of Charlie Good
“He was a patriot. He was the Governor General’s right hand,
Miss Minita Gordon, the last time. He turned Captain of the BDF, the defense
force of Belize.”
But the Charlie Good I met in May of 2007 wasn’t waging war on a battlefield,
it was on the street in front of the Social Security Board, fighting for his
pension. He was on a hunger strike.
[May 8th 2007]
Capt. Charlie Good,
“I am not only doing this for myself or for my family, I am doing
this for those people who are being short changed by the Social Security.”
Charlie Good prevailed and a day later he called off the hunger strike. Fast
forward to August of 2009 and we found Charlie Good again on the frontline.
This time his wife Hirian was at his side. She had been fired as a school warden,
politically in his view - and Captain Good was taking a stand.
[August, 2009]
Capt. Charlie Good,
“My wife mentioned that she wants her job back, fair enough. But what
about those other people who get terminated. So although they are not out here,
I am their voices.”
And he became a loud voice. It is a stand that the frail but resolute Captain
Good took and held for two months. And like the committed soldier he was, Captain
Good stood there – side by side with his wife because for him it became
a cause.
[August, 2009]
Capt. Charlie Good,
“We came out here to this kind of injustice, I look at it as injustice.”
And while he had soldiered in the jungles and battled in the boxing ring, that
fight against injustice may have been the one battle that Charlie Good fought
and didn’t win. He suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the KHMH
at 5:30 yesterday evening. At 4 this morning the hospital called Hirian. When
she got there, they gave her the bad news.
Hirian Good,
“The nurse come and tell me well, just the way I mi think he caught 
another stroke and he would stay all bend up and cripple, but she said, ‘Mr.
Good dead. I said no that can’t be. Up to right now I can’t believe
it because the way how I left him yesterday he was still talking and running
joke. So for this morning they tell me that he is dead, I am seeing him on the
bed done dead, done already tied up, he had his mouth open and so I asked the
nurse to please don’t let that stay so, let them close his mouth. I still
can’t believe it.”
Good was diabetic and had suffered several heart attacks Hirian says his health
caved under the pressure of the protest.
Hirian Good,
“Because of you, I nuh have no husband now because the stress gaan
with Charles. Yes he had his problems but I will tell you no lie, when me and
him would go out there sometimes, no sugar or nothing go high – everything
is fine. As we come home, because then no food is on the table, bills are there
to pay, people are calling him because they want their money – and so
all of this took that man this morning. I could bet you if I still had my job,
I would have still had my husband with me.”
But now Hirian doesn’t. All that’s left now are the pictures, hundreds
of them that now dot the wall in her home and fill albums. Along with those
pictures are memories.
Hirian Good,
“You see picture, I will make it big. Anytime I go to court or if
I have to go out there to protest again, I will take this with me.
Charlie Good gaan now. They might still have but somebody who used to stand
up and do what they say they will do. I don’t know if they have but in
my mind, I don’t think so.”
Perhaps the tragedy of his death is that Captain Good called off his
protest last week because the papers for his constitutional case against government
for his wife’s termination had been filed. He and his wife were planning
to move their protest to Albert Street. Hirian Good isn’t sure if she
will continue by herself.
Charlie Good had requested a post mortem and that will be performed
tomorrow. And if you are planning on attending his funeral – his wife
says that he didn’t want any flowers and wreaths. They instead are asking
for financial donations. Additionally, he didn’t want anyone in uniform
at the front of his funeral procession.
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