Matt Gallagher is a United States military veteran.

He’s a former Army captain who kept a blog (called “Kaboom“) while deployed near Baghdad during the Iraq War from November 2007 to June 2008.

He’s a very, very good writer. Which makes sense, because his most recent novel, Youngblood, based on his experiences as a combat soldier, garnered rave reviews from some titans in the publishing industry, including mega-critic Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times who called it “an urgent and deeply moving novel.”

Gallagher’s background, paired with his rare ability to articulate one of the most elusive and difficult things for humans to express — war — makes him the ideal candidate to answer the following question, which was posed by Esquire contributor and veteran himself, Robert Bateman, in a recent interview for the magazine:

We have been shot at, mortared, rocketed. You had IEDs (I did not). Does this make us more American? I think we both agree that the reverence toward American servicemen, while nice, is probably too much. I’m not comfortable being on a pedestal. You?

Gallagher’s eloquent response:

That was just part of the gig. We joined up, volunteered for that duty. It was a privilege to wear the uniform and remains something I’m deeply proud of, even if the war I served in turned out far differently than I’d hoped, both before I served and during my service. Now the fact that we as citizens (as opposed to we as veterans) care about these issues, care about how our military is representing our nation overseas and try to stay engaged with these issues and conflicts? Yes, I do believe that citizens who do that are better Americans than those who don’t, whether they have a military background or a civilian one. We’re a damn republic. It’s time to start acting like one again.