Quintana was born in McComb, Mississippi on December 15th, 1921. McComb was a railroad town. The majority of the employment had to do with railroads. During the Depression things in McComb were pretty rough. Quintana grew up in a family of eleven children. He was the only one of the children to graduate from high school. He did not have the slightest clue as to what he was going to do in later life. He went to school in the morning and worked in the afternoons when he was in high school. He worked at a hotel, it was there that Quintana met some people that would help him out and influence him the rest of his life. The Air Force originally turned him down. He met with an Air Force recruiting officer in Louisiana but failed the eye test. In McComb, Quintana ran into a Marine Corps recruiting officer. He entered the Marines in February of 1942. Quintana went from Jackson to New Orleans, and then on to California. Two of his older brothers were already in the armed forces so his parents did not think it was a great idea. Quintana joined because everyone else doing it.

After Quintana went through boot camp, he came out feeling like he could fight anyone. They prepared the men in boot camp for everything. They got the men in shape and trained them in tactics and in weaponry. After boot camp they had the choice to go to different schools to train in anything special.Quintana had the Saturday night shift [Annotator’s Note: at his job before the war] so when he got home late that night he went to sleep. His parents woke him up about mid afternoon on December 7th to inform him that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Quintana felt motivated after Pearl Harbor to join up and serve his country. He went through boot camp at Camp Pendleton. From San Diego, Quintana was put on a ship and sent to American Samoa. Merritt Edson, commander of the First Marine Raiders called upon a group of marines on American Samoa and asked for seven volunteers. Quintana volunteered and the real training began. They headed out into the jungles and began training. Their training included rubber boat landings. Quintana specialized in mortar training, scouting, climbing mountains, and other specialized tasks. He was a part of E company of the 1st Raiders. There was not much socializing during training except during boxing matches between the squads.One of Quintana’s friends died in his arms on Tulagi.

Quintana had to board an Australian ship that left from American Samoa. On Tulagi, the landing was rougher than anticipated because of a coral reef. Instead of exiting the Higgins boats from the front, a lot of men went over the side and ended up getting cut up badly from the coral. Once they landed on Tulagi they cut across the island and swept up any enemy resistance. They were told to take supplies for twenty-four hours. The first night the Japanese sunk four American cruisers, as a result the supply ships had to leave and Quintana and his men were stuck on Tulagi with no supplies for almost eight weeks. They were forced to improvise. The McKeen took Quintana from Tulagi to Guadalcanal. When Quintana disembarked on Guadalcanal the ship that took him there was sunk. On Tulagi, the Japanese had dug tunnels all throughout the island. As a result of the type of tunnels that were dug on Tulagi, Quintana and the other Marine Raiders had a tough time digging the Japanese out. They tried demolitions, flamethrowers, and other explosives but the best method was to find the tunnels and set up a machine gun trained on the entrance. The corpsmen and the runners had the hardest time on Tulagi. It also was prohibited to salute officers. Some of the Japanese had tied themselves up in trees and would only take a shot when it was at someone they deemed important such as an officer. The landing on Tulagi was unopposed. The Japanese had retreated back into the hills to set up defensive positions. There were also a bunch of booby traps. If something looked interesting, it was probably was a trap. Quintana carried a Springfield bolt action rifle and eight rounds of sixty millimeter mortar shells. He and his men had taken Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. As they held the field, a group of men laid out steel plates so that the planes would not be bogged down in the mud. The Japanese were constantly reinforcing the island of Guadalcanal, via the Tokyo Express. The Raiders were assigned to disrupt these supply drops and to take out any supplies that made it onshore. On the night of September 13th [Annotator's Note: 1942] the Japanese made their drive to recapture Henderson Field. Quintana ended up on the left flank of the ridge that surrounded Henderson Field. A Japanese machine gun opened up on him and pinned him down. He hollered to one of his buddies to throw him a grenade. As Quintana was about to pull the pin a Japanese grenade landed at his feet and exploded. That was the night they named the ridge ‘Bloody Ridge’ [Annotator's Note: also known as the Battle of Edson's Ridge].

Bloody Ridge had other names but that night it was officially named Bloody Ridge. It was the one spot that the Japanese thought they could break through, but the Raiders held and the Japanese did not advance. The ridge was very rugged and covered in heavy grass. It was hard to spot the Japanese because of the thick grass. Quintana notes that there were a lot of good men who stayed in the grass and fought the Japanese. He did not see much of the line or the other men around him. He notes that, "All you can do is worry about yourself and what is in front of you." Up on the ridge Quintana experienced firsthand the power of artillery. When the Japanese attacked there was a lot of firepower brought down on them. He recalls that the artillery came in really close. Sometimes the artillery would explode in the trees and produce a loud crack like lightning instead of a duller boom of an explosion on the ground. Most of the men would be dug in. Whenever a new position would be occupied it was paramount that the soldiers dig in. On Guadalcanal it was tough to dig in sometimes because of the different types of volcanic rock. When Quintana was getting ready to disembark his ship to land on Guadalcanal, an air raid warning went off. They ignored the siren initially as they crawled down into the boats but after they had hit the beach they turned around just in time to see the ship’s bow sticking out of the water. The ship had been sunk while the landing craft were taking men ashore. Ther were a tremendous amount of submarines lurking around Guadalcanal. Most of the planes that were attacking the marines came from Japanese carriers. Quintana and the men headed inland to set up a perimeter around Henderson field. They were pulled off the line for awhile to disrupt Japanese supplies at Tanaboga village, and then returned to the field.

At night around Henderson field the fighting was rough [Annotator’s Note: on Guadalcanal]. Quintana could only aim at the brief muzzle flashes from the Japanese guns and hope that he would hit something. When the Japanese would attack they would let everyone know they were coming. They yelled and screamed as they were attacking in an attempt to scare the Marines. Quintana remembers wondering if he would ever get out alive. The Marines would set up machine guns and at night when the Japanese attacked, they would do so by the hundreds, if not thousands. Sometimes the bodies of dead Japanese would block the field of fire. Most of the time on Guadalcanal, except for when they were defending Henderson field, the Raiders were on the move a lot. Every day it was move out, stay active during the day, set up a perimeter at night, and dig in. This happened over and over again. Quintana was never directly involved in the decision making in terms of where they were going; most of the time someone just barked at them to let the men know they were moving out. When Quintana remembers Bloody Ridge he remarks at how insignificant the territory was at the time. Looking back however with hindsight it is remarkable how important capturing and holding that ridge was. If the field had been captured then Australia and New Zealand would no longer be protected and the Pacific would be dominated by the Japanese. Quintana was wounded by the grenade on September 13th [Annotator’s Note: 1942]. Quintana counted as many as forty holes in his body from the shrapnel. His forehead was burned and his right eye was blown out. He was treated by a French first aid position. The work that was done on him immediately was done well and it definitely helped to prevent further injuries. 

When the grenade blew Quintana off the hill he does not remember if it knocked him unconscious but he does remember crawling back up the hill [Annotator’s Note: during the Battle of the Bloody Ridge in Guadalcanal, September 1942]. It was dark and he could hear the blood gurgling out of him. When he got to the top of the hill a corpsmen grabbed him and pulled him to where the first aid station was. He begged the corpsmen to stop the bleeding. They put tourniquets around his legs and arms, doused the wounds with sulfa powder and put him on a cot. Quintana was also knocked out with morphine. He was taken down to a more formal aid station where he laid for eight weeks. He was then put on a flying boat that took him to an island. On this island he got first aid treatment. Two men worked on him for a while. Quintana recalls that it was a wonder that he did not lose his left hand; he credits the work of the corpsmen for saving it. It still gives him problems; his wounds even to this day still hurt him almost constantly. The majority of the shrapnel is still inside him.When Quintana was on the Ridge, he had the feeling that he was out there alone. It was a product of the setting. His men were all around him yet at certain points in the fight he felt as if he was alone. On Tulagi, there was an instance where the Raiders set up a machine gun and every time someone would go to man the gun they would get picked off. This would happen at night and it was frustrating to the men. In the morning they would collect dog tags and take a roll to see who was hit.Quintana regrets not knowing more of the Raiders that he served with. He felt that he was serving with the best men that America had to offer. He feels that he does not deserve any more honor then the men he fought with.

It gives Quintana a good feeling to be able to say that he was a Marine Raider. He felt that the Raiders did not feel above any other marines, but the difference was in the type of jobs that they had to do and how the did it. Quintana was well received by his men because he proved to them that he knew what he was doing. Colonel Edson [Annotator’s Note: Marine Corps Colonel Merritt Austin Edson] was on the hill behind Quintana. Quintana remembers seeing him standing on the hill, "like the bullets were supposed to dodge him." He calls Edson a "fighting machine" and that anyone "would be proud to go fight for him." A lot of the men who served with the Raiders and the ones who are still alive have great pride in the fact that they fought for Edson.Quintana did not go to any Raider reunions because he was busy and he felt that he would have been a stranger to most of them.On Tulagi, one of the supply ships did not show up and the men were forced to make do. This ship was supposedly piloted by Merchant Marines and they refused to bring the ship in close. Quintana and some other men grabbed a boat and paddled out to the ship to get some food. When Quintana reached the ships galley to eat one of the men tried to stop him. The man said that the food was for ship personnel only. Quintana lowered his weapon to his hip, just to make the man aware, and said, "Son of a bitch I hope you’re joking." Quintana got the boxes of food to shore and they immediately started busting them open. Most of the time the food was worm infested and the men would sit down on a log and relieve themselves while they ate. Nearly everyone had diarrhea. Quintana remembers hearing the naval battle in Iron Bottom Sound. He did not see any of the action but definitely heard it.

Quintana did not talk about the war much when he got home. He did not talk about it with his kids, however with age he became more accepting of it and talks about it more. He recalls that most people were respectful and nice immediately after the war. One time he was catching a train out of Chicago and a women came up to him and offered him her bunk in the sleeper car. Quintana respectfully declined. The train from Chicago was taking him back to McComb. On the train, one of the workers saw him and called out, "Hey Mr. Ben!" It was one of the hotel workers who had worked with Quintana at the hotel during high school. The man got some pillows for him and reminded him that if he needed anything at all he knew where to go to. Quintana's father met him at the train station. One of his professors from Ole Miss [Annotators Note: the University of Mississippi] met up with him one day as well. The teacher said, "Mr. Quintana, I did not realize we had a war hero among us." Quintana responded, "We don’t." He does not feel that the war scarred him too badly. The VA [Annotator’s Note: Veterans Affairs] called him one day and sent him to a hospital in Alabama for eight weeks of observation as part of a study. Quintana did not like that idea too much. He told the doctor that he was not a mental case and was curious as to why he had to stay eight weeks. He also had a job by this time and informed the doctor. The doctor gave him a physical and sent him home.

Quintana did not mention events from the war too often; he talked about the war later in life. After he had his glass eye measured and put in, he and his buddies went to the Chinatown area of San Francisco. They ended up in a bar and when Quintana was enjoying his beer he accidentally rubbed his glass eye too hard and it popped out of the socket. The bartender asked him what he was looking for and he told him what had happened. In no time the rest of the bar was on the ground searching for his eye. One of the guys who found it about fifteen feet away. He wiped it off and put it back in his eye socket. He does not seem to suffer from any effects of PTSD [Annotator’s Note: Post-traumatic stress disorder]. He does not have problems sleeping at night. He also does not have any problems watching war films. He, in his own words, is a "workaholic." His ability to stay busy has helped out with how he has been able to handle his experiences.

Quintana believes that it is important that people continue to study and research World War II however he does note that it depends on who is writing the book and how they choose to tell the stories. He admits that he is not the smartest in terms of school, however he was a hard worker and that got him through life.Quintana's worst memory from the war is when his friend died in his arms. He saw men get shot, blown apart, ships destroyed, and just about everything and anything bad about war he saw. Yet the lasting image of the war for him was his friend dying in his arms. Quintana notes that there is a lot of meanness in the world.Quintana believes that it is important that we have museums such as the National World War II Museum. It is important to remember the people who died for their country. He believes that if we do not honor the people who helped this country fight then we owe them a great debt.He felt that the Japanese had their job to do and he had his and that was one of the few things he could actually concentrate on. He thought most of them were crazy for the way they fought. Sometimes the Japanese would run wildly to their deaths and that amazed Quintana. He "knows damn well" that he is lucky to have survived the war.