Photo By Sgt. David Nye | CSM Delia Quintero stands with her 1SGs on Forward Operating Base Denver at the...... read more read more
FORT IRWIN, Calif. - The 508th Brigade Special Troops Battalion command sergeant major sits at her ease in her Future Operations Cell at Fort Irwin, Calif. as she describes a 19-year career as a signal soldier in the U.S. Army, Sept. 12.
Command Sgt. Maj. Delia Quintero, a Signal Communications non-commissioned officer currently serving as the senior NCO in the 508th BSTB, is a Los Angeles native and a Hispanic American who long planned on joining the Army.
“I always wanted to join the Army, since junior high,” she said. “When my parents started talking to me about college, I said, ‘But I’m not going to college, I’m going to the Army.’ They didn’t think I was serious till I came home with a recruiter.”
She loves the Army, but hadn’t always planned on making it a career.
“It wasn’t until after my initial enlistment, when I reenlisted I knew. I loved being a soldier, everything about it.”
Quintero’s climb was not a solo effort though, she readily admits to having help from mentors.
“I had a lot. They saw potential in me before I saw it in myself. From my first squad leader to my 1st Sgt., they always told me, ‘Here’s what you need to do. This and not that will help your career.’”
Their advice helped a lot, but Quintero had her own drive to push her on.
“I didn’t have many mental challenges, it was mostly physical. I had to beat myself, take a no-failure mentality. I had to run the fastest and have the highest PT score.”
“If you were high-speed, I was higher,’ she said.
Quintero said her heritage has always been important to her and that expressing it has never been hard for her.
“It’s on the individual. It has to do with pride and soul. My father told me to have pride in my family and to have pride in my heritage. If you want it, you will have it.”
Describing what it means to be Hispanic, Quintero celebrated her heritage both from being in a Hispanic family as well as that of being born in America.
“We have the best of two worlds. I have Hispanic parents, I grew up and lived in that culture but I was born in America and have that life, it’s a privilege.”
Quintero said she has never felt her heritage or gender has slowed her down and she’s never minded that the other people competing for her job looked different.
“It’s never been a problem for me. I don’t separate myself as Hispanic or as female. I’m just a professional. There’s a lot in me about working myself and improving my organization, so it’s never bothered me. I’d compare myself to anyone; male or female, in the same job or a different job.”
She said she doesn’t necessarily see herself as a role model but tries to act like one.
“It goes back to the cliché, you can’t just talk the talk, you have to walk it also. If it’s something I tell my troops, it’s something I have done or will do. I try to be a role model but that’s in the eye of the beholder. You don’t choose to mentor someone, you’re chosen as a mentor.”
| Date Taken: | 09.18.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 09.18.2011 14:34 |
| Story ID: | 77220 |
| Location: | FORT IRWIN, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 1,100 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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