Captain William (Bill) Ralph Karl Davidson

In Loving Memory Of Captain William (Bill) Ralph Karl Davidson

June 21, 1964 ~ June 12, 2022

Odysseus, Come Home

Captain William (Bill) Ralph Karl Davidson, United States Navy (Retired), was born on the 21st of June 1964 in Littlefield, Texas. He passed suddenly and unexpectedly on the 12th of June 2022, in his hometown of Corpus Christi.

Bill was named in honor of his maternal step-grandfather, William H. Duckworth, a former Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico and State Senator from Curry County, our long-time family physician and dear friend Dr. Ralph E. Maurer, and his maternal grandfather Roscoe Karl Staubus, legendary coach of the Clovis High School football and boys' basketball team.

Bill's life odyssey began in Littlefield, where he was baptized in the First Presbyterian Church and attended Littlefield public schools. Bill was blessed with the gift of speed – his senior year of high school he was the District 2-3A champion in the 330-yard intermediate hurdles and a member of the champion 440-yard and mile relay teams. Bill excelled academically as well, graduating as salutatorian of the class of 1982. He went on to attend the University of Texas where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and the Texas Cowboys service organization. Bill then attended Baylor College of Dentistry.

His desire for a larger purpose in life inspired Bill to accept a commission as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy following his graduation from dental school. He served at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base, Hawaii, and San Diego. Over the next several years Bill participated in multiple deployments to far-off places such as Turkey, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Australia, and Tonga in the South Pacific. During that time he completed an oral and maxillofacial surgical residency at Naval Station Great Lakes and Loyola University School of Medicine in Chicago and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College at Quantico, Virginia.

In January 2003, Bill deployed to Kuwait with elements of the II Marine Expeditionary Force and later participated in the invasion of Iraq that March as the officer-in-charge (OIC) of a triage detachment. Bill accompanied the Marine assault forces all the way to Baghdad while providing life-saving triage for wounded Marines and sailors. Two years later in January 2005, Bill deployed again to Iraq, this time to the volatile al-Anbar Province where he served as a dental detachment OIC. He and his dental technicians augmented the local Shock-Trauma Platoon at Camp Taqqadum and provided life-saving medical care for myriad casualties as the Iraqi insurgency metastasized in scope and intensity. During this deployment, Bill would convoy to the Iraqi/Syrian frontier in order to provide dental support to the Marines and sailors manning remote combat outposts sitting astride the "rat lines" used by insurgents to infiltrate into Iraq. Bill left a part of his soul in Iraq; but through his indomitable character and irrepressible sense of humor, he stayed the course of his life odyssey that eventually led him from the tactical arena to that of the institutional sphere.

In 2006 Bill was accepted into the US Army/Baylor University Graduate Program of Health and Business Administration at Joint Base-Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. He graduated in 2007 with a M.A degree in Healthcare Administration. Bill was now responsible for developing integrated dental health care policies and procedures for the Department of the Navy and overseeing their implementation across a global constellation of Naval medical facilities. He served on the Board of Directors of Walter Reed-Bethesda National Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, again in San Diego as the OIC of all dental facilities in the region, and as the Executive Officer for the Naval Health Clinic at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

Bill's life odyssey reached its zenith with his selection to command the Naval Hospital at Naval Air Station Sigonella on the island of Sicily from 2014-2016. His command included all naval healthcare facilities in the eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Subsequent to relinquishing command, Bill returned to the United States and served in various capacities at Headquarters Marine Corps, Walter Reed-Bethesda National Naval Hospital, and Joint Base-Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

Bill's life odyssey carried him into a new season with his retirement from the United States Navy on 01 July 2021 at the rank of Captain after 30 years of honorable service.

Bill was preceded in death by his father, James Sr.; his mother, Jane; and his older brother, Jim.

He is survived by his beloved wife, Terri of Corpus Christi; sister, Sally of Cañon City, Colorado and sister, Mary of Brooklyn, New York; brother, Ben of Littlefield/Lubbock and brother, Major John Davidson, United States Marine Corps (Retired) of Whispering Pines, North Carolin; and multiple nieces and nephews.

We will always remember his wit, his sense of humor, and his love of the Longhorns. We will also remember his second family – his dogs. He never met a dog that didn't deserve a good home. Whenever we would talk about his next assignment across the country he would always say, "No dog left behind."

"Well done, good and faithful servant!" Matthew 25:21