Mat Best is one of those interesting studies in contrasts. He’s a man’s man not afraid to soul search. A five-tour Army Ranger who wonders if we ever belonged in Iraq. A Second Amendment defender and LGBTQ supporter. A savvy entrepreneur and goofball entertainer. But there’s only one side to Best’s patriotism, and it shines red, white, and blue.

Born and raised in Santa Barbara in a military family, Best joined the U.S. Army straight out of high school. He went on to fight in one of the armed forces’ most elite units before becoming a CIA contractor. Suffice it to say, he’s seen some stuff, which he describes with brutal honesty and gallows humor in his new book, Thank You for My Service, now on the New York Times Best-Seller List. Think Ernie Pyle meets an NC-17 Captain America.

As Best walks readers through his training, where he survived a flesh-eating virus in the swamps of Georgia, and his battlefield experience, including kicking down doors in Ramadi and blowing up cars full of enemy combatants, he makes something very clear ― he enjoyed his job. A lot. And he doesn’t apologize for that. Best explains, in uncompromising detail, the attraction of the warrior mentality and how it fed his most primal urges. He also talks about how it eventually absorbed his whole identity and why it was so hard to shake as a civilian.