By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Summer vacations in Sea Isle City were always special for Judi Tapper and her family, including her only son, David.
“He used to say that he had salt water and sand running through his veins,” Tapper recalled of David’s childhood at the shore.
Even during those playful times on the beach as a kid, David dreamed of one day becoming a Navy Seal, an elite member of the military specializing in harrowing missions, his mother said.
He later fulfilled those dreams, but, tragically, was killed in combat in 2003 while serving in war-torn Afghanistan. He was 32 and left behind his wife and four children.
Recognizing his family’s longtime ties to Sea Isle and David’s heroism, the city is going to rename 89th Street after the former Navy Seal. A dedication ceremony led by Mayor Leonard Desiderio originally was planned for Saturday, but the coastal storm arriving this weekend prompted the city to reschedule the event for June 11.
“They’re all so honored and proud,” Judi Tapper said of how her family feels about the street dedication in David’s memory.
David Tapper will not be the first military hero who has a street named in his honor in Sea Isle. A portion of 46th Street is named in honor of Cpl. Michael Crescenz, a Sea Isle summer resident who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Vietnam War.
“We’ve often said that we owe so much to our veterans; and I hope that we show that we mean it by our actions here in Sea Isle City,” Desiderio said in a statement. “The fact is that none of us can ever repay the debt owed to service men and women like David Tapper, but we can remember and honor them; and try to conduct ourselves in ways that show that we value and cherish the freedom that all of our veterans have fought to provide us with.”
Desiderio credited local veterans advocate Joe Griffies for bringing the idea of renaming 89th Street in David Tapper’s honor to the city. He called Griffies a “tireless fighter for all veterans.” Judi Tapper also thanked Griffies while emphasizing his role in the street dedication ceremony.
It was at 110 89th Street that Judi Tapper’s family formerly owned a summer vacation home built by her grandparents, Joseph and Edith Proudfoot, in the 1930s. Tapper’s mother, Edith Bozarth, would also take the family to the shore home. Then Tapper and her five daughters and David would use the house for their vacations.
“When I grew up, it was paradise,” Tapper said of Sea Isle.
She noted that her children felt the same way about the resort town.
“The shore was special for the kids,” she said in an interview Friday.
The family’s old house, a quaint seashore-style cottage, was sold around 1990 and has since been demolished and replaced with a modern home.
Tapper, who lives in Atco, Camden County, keeps a street sign of 89th Street at her home to serve as a fond reminder of the family’s summer vacations in the Townsends Inlet section of Sea Isle.
Now 82, Tapper continues to maintain ties to Sea Isle. Each year in late September, she stands on 89th Street for the Run for the Fallen, an event that honors the men and women of the U.S. military who gave their lives for their country.
She formerly served for nine years as the president of the New Jersey Gold Star Mothers, part of a national organization of mothers whose sons or daughters died in the line of duty in military service.
Tapper’s son was fatally wounded when his convoy encountered enemy forces in Afghanistan on Aug. 20, 2003. Only months before David Tapper was killed, he was part of the Navy Seal team that rescued wounded American POW Jessica Lynch in Iraq in April 2003. He also helped to recover the bodies of nine U.S. soldiers buried near the Iraqi hospital where Lynch, an Army private, was held.
Even at a young age, David wanted to make the military his career, his mother recalled.
He was the youngest of Judi Tapper’s six children, including five daughters.
“He was the baby of the family,” she said. “This year, he would be 50.”
