First Degree

There was once a man who’d gotten away with twenty different counts of first-degree murder.

He was a sniper for the United States Marines Corps, and he came back from his final tour of duty with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Due to his country lacking adequate support systems for the veterans it claimed to venerate, he had no safety net after returning home. He resumed his childhood religious practice, a conservative Christian group, but found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his body count with the Fourth Commandment. Thus, the twenty-first life he took was his own.

The national suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. One of the sniper’s compatriots had to call that very number a few weeks later due to overwhelming guilt: it’d taken him that long to realize that maybe burying his former comrade with the sniper rifle he’d used to kill all twenty-one of his victims was bad form.

He made a full recovery and used his earnings from wise financial investments to start a charity for veterans.