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Thomas J. Cutler is a retired lieutenant commander and former gunner's mate second class who served in patrol craft, cruisers, destroyers, and aircraft carriers. His varied assignments included an in-country Vietnam tour, small craft command, and nine years at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he served as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Seamanship & Navigation Department and Associate Chairman of the History Department. While at the Academy, he was awarded the William P. Clements Award for Excellence in Education (military teacher of the year). He is the founder and former Director of the Walbrook Maritime Academy in Baltimore. Currently he is Fleet Professor of Strategy and Policy with the Naval War College and is the Director of Professional Publishing at the U.S. Naval Institute. Winner of the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Naval Literature, the U.S. Naval Institute Press Author of the Year, and the U.S. Maritime Literature Award, his published works include NavCivGuide: A Handbook for Civilians in the U.S. Navy; A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy [one of the books in the Chief of Naval Operations Reading Program]; The Battle of Leyte Gulf; Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal & Riverine Warfare in Vietnam; and the 22nd, 23rd (Centennial), and 24th editions of The Bluejacket's Manual. His other works include revisions of Jack Sweetman's The Illustrated History of the U.S. Naval Academy and Dutton's Nautical Navigation. He and his wife, Deborah W. Cutler, are the co-editors of the Dictionary of Naval Terms and the Dictionary of Naval Abbreviations. His books have been published in various forms, including paperback and audio, and have appeared as main and alternate selections of the History Book Club, Military Book Club, and Book of the Month Club. He has served as a panelist, commentator, and keynote speaker on military and writing topics at many events and for various organizations, including the Naval History and Heritage Command, Smithsonian Institution, the Navy Memorial, U.S. Naval Academy, MacArthur Memorial Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, U.S. Naval Institute, Armed Forces Electronics Communications and Electronics Association, Naval War College, Civitan, and many veterans' organizations. His television appearances include the History Channel's Biography series, A&E's Our Century, Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor, and CBS's 48 Hours.
Among the unsung heroes of America's involvement in Vietnam were the sailors and coast-guardsmen who manned the small craft that fought (or stood watch) in that country's coastal and inland waterways. Lt. Cdr. Cutler, a combat veteran who now teaches at Annapolis. here rescues these mariners from obscurity with a concise history that effectively combines vivid tributes to their valor with more formal briefings on how the military developed operational doctrine and vessels suitable for its unconventional flotillas. There's a somber unity to Cutler's narrative in that the first Navy men assigned to Vietnam in 1964 served in an advisory capacity. By mid-1969, Vietnamization had begun (at the behest of the politically astute Adm. Elmo Zumwalt), and the last US naval bases were turned over to local forces in April of 1972. Between times, black-bereted naval personnel played an active role in the war, patrolling rivers and offshore waters to destroy (or confiscate) supplies bound for the Vietcong, braking infiltration from the North, sweeping mines, and participating in bloody assaults on guerrilla strongholds. Using converted pleasure boats, aging LSTs, air-cushion vehicles, swift little cutters, and a variety of other shallow-draft craft, the brown-water sailors compiled a distinguished record. They also won a raft of well-deserved decorations, including a Congressional Medal of Honor, at no small cost in casualties while serving under frequently hellish conditions in tropical theaters. A narrowly focused but praiseworthy addition to the growing log on America's Vietnam experience. (Kirkus Reviews)
