Dean Shalhoup

The fine Zodiac Sea Wolf wristwatch he bought while on leave in Australia came to mean a lot to U.S. Marine Cpl. Gary Davidson, who took the time to make sure it was always tucked away in his uniform amid the standard tools of warfare.

The Zodiac was with Davidson on Sept. 15, 1970,more than likely another steamy, soggy day in the war-torn jungles of southeast Asia that suddenly became anything but a typical day for Davidson and his fellow soldiers.

The point man in his outfit, Davidson tripped one of the so-called booby traps the VietCong were known to plant here and there and seemingly everywhere.

The resulting force was sufficiently strong to inflict serious wounds to Davidson, serious enough that he was immediately evacuated by medical helicopter and flown to Da Nang, the big port city where the U.S. and South Vietnamese commands based their high-level military operations.

Admitted to Cam Ranh Bay Naval Hospital for what turned out to be a 4-6 week recovery, Gary Davidson at some point found and checked on his Zodiac.

Courtesy photo Hollis resident Doug Davidson, left, displays the high-end Zodiac Sea Wolf watch that stopped working more than 50 years ago when his brother Gary, right, was wounded in Vietnam. Doug has since found Nashua jeweler Tim Cardin, who was able to get the watch working again. (Courtesy photo)

The explosion “took a chip out of the crystal,” Gary recalled, noting that he was wounded one year to the day after he joined the Marines.

He also discovered the Zodiac was no longer running.

Doug and Gary Davidson grew up in a lakeside home in the Binghamton, New York area, where their circle of close friends included a slightly older kid by the name of Larry Rose.

“He was like our big brother,” Doug said of Rose, who was especially close to Gary.

“He was my hero. We did everything together, hunting, fishing, playing sports,” Gary said this week from his home in the Binghamton suburb of Windsor, New York.

So when the tragic news reached home in June 1968 that Rose had been killed in Vietnam, Gary took it especially hard.

“I couldn’t believe it when he got killed. I stayed drunk for most of the summer then finally said, ‘screw this, I’m going in.'”

“Going in,” of course, meant joining the U.S. Marines. Gary and four of those close friends headed down to their local draft board and signed enlistment papers.

The military at the time had a “buddy system” that, when possible, allowed friends who enlisted together to stay together through basic training.

The boys from Greater Binghamton did just that, Doug Davidson said, enduring together “boot camp” in Parris Island and Camp Lejeune, then heading west to Camp Pendleton before shipping out to Southeast Asia.

Family members of all five boys got together and made the trip to their boot camp graduation, Doug said.

Gary Davidson had been overseas about six months and had made corporal when he was granted his first stint of “R&R” – rest and relaxation, the military term for vacation. He and a bunch of other guys picked Australia to visit.

It was there that the handsome Zodiac Sea Wolf timepiece caught Gary Davidson’s eye. His brother doesn’t remember exactly what Gary paid for it – “maybe 50 bucks?” he guessed.

A quick check puts the value of a Zodiac Sea Wolf today at anywhere from $1,000 to $3,500, depending on specific model and condition.

Doug Davidson recovered from his injuries to the point he was able to return to active duty. Despite the Zodiac not working, he kept it as close as ever for the remaining 11 months and 3 weeks of his tour.

Doug Davidson recalls meeting his brother at Newark Airport on the final leg of Gary’s long trip home.

Going through his stuff not long after coming home, Gary dug out the Zodiac and offered it to his brother “as a memento,” Doug said. Knowing how much the Zodiac meant to his brother, Doug gladly accepted, imagining that perhaps someday he’d find someone who could get it running again.

The first jeweler who Doug took the watch to shook his head. “Sorry,” the second jeweler said. And so on.

“So it settled in my jewelry box at home,” Doug said. “For 48 years.” The repair project was tabled, likely for good.

Until, that is, just recently. Doug, by then a Hollis resident and a father in a sports-minded family who had started coaching youth baseball, got talking to another youth sports dad and coach he’d come to know over a few seasons.

Tim Cardin, it occurred to Doug, was a professional jeweler who’d been associated with the longtime family business on Main Street in Nashua.

So the next time Doug ran into Tim, “I mentioned the story about the watch that Gary had given me,” Doug said. “Tim offered to take a look at it to see if anything could be done.”

Doug, recalling the series of “no, sorry” responses from years back, was at once encouraged and cautiously optimistic.

“Long story short,” Doug told me last week, “it was running like new within a week.” Cardin, perhaps not wanting to take a chance at jinxing his success, held onto the watch for an entire week before giving Doug the news, just to make sure his fix was permanent.

“When I got it back I told my brother … I showed it to him, asked him if he wanted it back now that it was running,” Doug said.

Gary didn’t hesitate. “He said, ‘no, I gave it to you,'” Doug recalled.

“I wear it regularly,” Doug added. “It’s a family heirloom.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.