Former Commander of the Elite Unit Making Headlines Speaks Part 1
The former commander of the Special Quick Response Force (SQRF) from 1994 to 1999 Col. (Ret) Jamila Cain has a farm and sort of animal shelter in Jacksonville, Md.
INT: The Girl Scouts?
(at this point Cain cracks a wide smile)
CAIN: No, I'm totally fucking with you. (She laughs)
INT: You seemed so sincere.
CAIN: That was a big part of the job when I was commander; to be honest. In the '90s? It was way easier than it is now to keep incidents vague. We'd call it training exercise or gas leak or whatever the fuck.
INT: You would lie.
CAIN: If you want to say that; you can. But a lot of things we dealt with? I can promise you, people didn't want to know about it. I grew up during the cold war; I saw Amazing Grace and Chuck in the theater. Do you remember that shit?
INT: I... don't.
CAIN: How old are you?
INT: 25.
CAIN: Alright, well, it was an anti-nuclear war movie, and I don't remember much about it. But there was this one line, "Let's just say that your mama and your sister are washing dishes after dinner. Your mom drops a fork. Now, if an ICBM airbursts just miles away, your sister's gonna be vaporized before that fork hits the floor." That shit was chilling. Any kid who saw that didn't sleep well until the Berlin Wall fell. If we didn't "lie" about why we existed and what our missions were? What we were up against? Your generation would have had a harder time sleeping, too.
INT: Now that it's out there, though...
CAIN: I'm okay with it. I was hoping it would happen during my command, but it didn't. Then 9/11, and you know...
INT: How did that change things?
CAIN: My command was until 1999, so you'll have to ask Chief Denison.
INT: She was a warrant officer under you?
CAIN: She was a sergeant. She went to warrant officer school in late '98, I retired a month after, and while she was in school, Capt. Harris Jackson was acting commander, he did well but, it's not really a man's job.
INT: How do you mean?
CAIN: The Girl Scouts joke? Not far from the truth. The unit has historically been almost always been female-type soldiers. Even before it had a formal name, it was mostly women. Every so often a man makes the cut, but that's pretty rare. It's a real thing and the stuff we deal with? Whatever you want to call them? They are after women, young women, and girls, first.
INT: Do you know why?
CAIN: Scientifically? No clue. But for some reason, women would end up with experiences with these things way, way more often than men. Okay, well, like...they'd survive. There would be men in these situations. We'd find their corpses after the fact.
INT: What happened to them?
CAIN: Generally? They were overconfident. They confronted things they didn't understand, thinking they knew what to do because they scuffled with other boys so they thought could handle whatever were-thing or whatever.
INT: Do you know what they are? The 'were-things' and so on.
CAIN: Of course, we have a whole system!
It's an idyllic place, with several Weeping Willow trees standing sentry around one level home that is painted in earth tones with hasta plants that belly up to the foundation.
Cain is smoking a cigarette on the front porch, cleaning a submachine gun on an oil blanket when I arrive. She has all the appearance and bearing of a soldier and stands rail straight when I'm within a certain distance. As I walked up, she looked once and started rushing what she was doing with the weapon and by the time she was done, she was ready to stand up and shake my hand. She takes me around the property, and her home, and tells me about her husband, who designed the landscaping.
She has just buried him, a prize-winning novelist, and later, during our interview, she goes through their mutual gun collection, breaking down cleaning, and functions checking each one.
There are many animals, a massive flock of chickens roams freely and there are dogs that heard them out of boredom. There is a smaller flock of ducks that hold court over a series of three large ponds, the top pond is the largest: fish swim in all the while, turtles and frogs go about their business all around its perimeter in their waters. It is structured in such a way that the largest pond is the highest, sort of a "volcano of life" as Col. Cain tells me. Her husband designed it this way.
There is a sort of oxbow lake pond, which the ducks avoid as it is ruled by an aggressive old snapping turtle that Cain's husband named "Hemingway." She smiles a little and says "Hemingway is a sonovabitch...but he takes good care of those in his pond. The cranes only fuck with this pond when he's hibernating, he's awake now and mad as hell. They feast on things until early April or so, after that...he's not having it."
Another smaller pond - that is about the diameter of a very large backyard pool, teams with more fishes and frogs and around the perimeter, Cain points to the toads that will only come to the ponds the breed and how her husband - whose name she has not said and will not say more than maybe three times for the rest of this interview - put most of the land together to just 'keep life going.' The ponds all feed into each other through a mechanized waterfall system that Cain's husband also designed.
When we start to walk back to the front porch she pauses, and says "He was very gentle. I was not." She says nothing else until we arrive back at the porch.
There are many animals, a massive flock of chickens roams freely and there are dogs that heard them out of boredom. There is a smaller flock of ducks that hold court over a series of three large ponds, the top pond is the largest: fish swim in all the while, turtles and frogs go about their business all around its perimeter in their waters. It is structured in such a way that the largest pond is the highest, sort of a "volcano of life" as Col. Cain tells me. Her husband designed it this way.
There is a sort of oxbow lake pond, which the ducks avoid as it is ruled by an aggressive old snapping turtle that Cain's husband named "Hemingway." She smiles a little and says "Hemingway is a sonovabitch...but he takes good care of those in his pond. The cranes only fuck with this pond when he's hibernating, he's awake now and mad as hell. They feast on things until early April or so, after that...he's not having it."
Another smaller pond - that is about the diameter of a very large backyard pool, teams with more fishes and frogs and around the perimeter, Cain points to the toads that will only come to the ponds the breed and how her husband - whose name she has not said and will not say more than maybe three times for the rest of this interview - put most of the land together to just 'keep life going.' The ponds all feed into each other through a mechanized waterfall system that Cain's husband also designed.
When we start to walk back to the front porch she pauses, and says "He was very gentle. I was not." She says nothing else until we arrive back at the porch.
The dogs that heard the chickens and roam around stop by sometimes and Cain tosses a lacrosse ball that one of them brings her from time to time. They are all retired military-type dogs. German and Belgian Shepherds, 2 of the former and 2 of the ladder, and a Pitbull that is missing an eye.
My Interview with her:
My Interview with her:
INT: So, how did this unit come about in the first place?
CAIN: The Girl Scouts were established to fight demons and vampires and shit. Probably because of that whole 'penchant for virgins,' thing. Most women usually don't make it to their 18th birthday without killing some sort of otherworldly ghoul. Next time you see a lady with scars you should probably thank her for keeping the wolves from the fucking door.
INT: The Girl Scouts?
(at this point Cain cracks a wide smile)
CAIN: No, I'm totally fucking with you. (She laughs)
INT: You seemed so sincere.
CAIN: That was a big part of the job when I was commander; to be honest. In the '90s? It was way easier than it is now to keep incidents vague. We'd call it training exercise or gas leak or whatever the fuck.
INT: You would lie.
CAIN: If you want to say that; you can. But a lot of things we dealt with? I can promise you, people didn't want to know about it. I grew up during the cold war; I saw Amazing Grace and Chuck in the theater. Do you remember that shit?
INT: I... don't.
CAIN: How old are you?
INT: 25.
CAIN: Alright, well, it was an anti-nuclear war movie, and I don't remember much about it. But there was this one line, "Let's just say that your mama and your sister are washing dishes after dinner. Your mom drops a fork. Now, if an ICBM airbursts just miles away, your sister's gonna be vaporized before that fork hits the floor." That shit was chilling. Any kid who saw that didn't sleep well until the Berlin Wall fell. If we didn't "lie" about why we existed and what our missions were? What we were up against? Your generation would have had a harder time sleeping, too.
INT: Now that it's out there, though...
CAIN: I'm okay with it. I was hoping it would happen during my command, but it didn't. Then 9/11, and you know...
INT: How did that change things?
CAIN: My command was until 1999, so you'll have to ask Chief Denison.
INT: She was a warrant officer under you?
CAIN: She was a sergeant. She went to warrant officer school in late '98, I retired a month after, and while she was in school, Capt. Harris Jackson was acting commander, he did well but, it's not really a man's job.
INT: How do you mean?
CAIN: The Girl Scouts joke? Not far from the truth. The unit has historically been almost always been female-type soldiers. Even before it had a formal name, it was mostly women. Every so often a man makes the cut, but that's pretty rare. It's a real thing and the stuff we deal with? Whatever you want to call them? They are after women, young women, and girls, first.
INT: Do you know why?
CAIN: Scientifically? No clue. But for some reason, women would end up with experiences with these things way, way more often than men. Okay, well, like...they'd survive. There would be men in these situations. We'd find their corpses after the fact.
INT: What happened to them?
CAIN: Generally? They were overconfident. They confronted things they didn't understand, thinking they knew what to do because they scuffled with other boys so they thought could handle whatever were-thing or whatever.
INT: Do you know what they are? The 'were-things' and so on.
CAIN: Of course, we have a whole system!
INT: Can you share it with me?
CAIN: You'll have to talk to Chief Denison about that, I'm sure it's changed since I was in command.
INT: Historically, can we talk about that?
CAIN: Sure. It wasn't a formal unit for a long time. But military units that were mostly women? They hunted down a lot of stuff and were fast and quiet. Starting long before America was a thing...
Read Part 2
CAIN: You'll have to talk to Chief Denison about that, I'm sure it's changed since I was in command.
INT: Historically, can we talk about that?
CAIN: Sure. It wasn't a formal unit for a long time. But military units that were mostly women? They hunted down a lot of stuff and were fast and quiet. Starting long before America was a thing...
Read Part 2
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