Coming from a family with military tradition, he began his career at the Porto Alegre War School and reached the rank of army general.

[4] He then commanded the federal troops that put down the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 and, during the fighting, he lost his brother, captain Cícero Augusto de Góis Monteiro, who was a member of the 9th Infantry Regiment of the Brazilian Army.

[5] After this event, he was appointed Minister of War in the Getúlio Vargas government, between 18 January 1934 and 7 May 1935,[6] until Eurico Gaspar Dutra was chosen as his successor, which did not prevent Góis Monteiro from actively participating of the establishment and maintenance of the Estado Novo (1937–1945), an event that helped consolidate his family as the dominant political force in Alagoas, a state governed by two of his brothers between 1941 and 1945.

Demonstrating the fascist stance of Getúlio Vargas' political actors during the Estado Novo, among whom Góis Monteiro was one of the most prominent names, Cláudio de Lacerda Paiva described the Vargas government agents in the following terms: "the one who censored was Lourival Fontes, the one who tortured was Filinto Muller, the one who instituted fascism was Francisco Campos, the one who carried out the coup was Dutra and the one who supported Hitler was Góis Monteiro".

[7][8] At the time he was Minister of War, he drafted the National Security Doctrine that inspired several laws in this regard both in the Vargas Era and in the 1964 military regime.