By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
David Tapper loved spending his childhood summers in Sea Isle City at the family’s vacation home at 110 89th Street.
So much so, that when his grandparents sold the home in 1990, he stole the street sign on 89th Street to let his family know how unhappy he was that his seashore dream house was gone.
“He decided that he wanted that sign. He said he had spent so much time there that he felt he had earned it,” his mother, Judi Tapper, recalled with a laugh.
The old street sign remains at Judi Tapper’s home in Atco, N.J., serving as a treasured keepsake and fond reminder of all the family vacations in Sea Isle. Now, there is another sign that will forever link the Tapper family to 89th Street.
Judi Tapper and her family joined with city officials and military veterans Saturday morning at the corner of 89th Street and Landis Avenue to unveil a new street sign that honors David Tapper, a former Navy Seal killed in combat in 2003 while serving in Afghanistan.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio hailed Tapper as an American hero who bravely served his country in the military for 13 years and made the ultimate sacrifice.
“If I could have one wish today, it would be that David Tapper was here with us as a living veteran, so that we could shake his hand, pat him on the back and maybe even buy him a beer – as ways to say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Sadly, we cannot do that,” Desiderio in his remarks at the dedication ceremony.
Desiderio noted that Sea Isle, though, can thank Tapper by making his name synonymous with 89th Street.
“And so, from this day forward, as countless people pass through this intersection, they will know that this is a special place, because it is where an American hero once lived and loved,” Desiderio said of the new sign naming 89th Street in Tapper’s memory.
Culminating the ceremony, Desiderio climbed up a ladder and pulled off the plastic wrap that covered the street sign to formally unveil David Tapper’s name.
Tapper was 32 when he was killed. He left behind his wife and four children. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
David Tapper is not the first military hero who has a street dedicated in his memory 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.
Joe Griffies, a veterans advocate who originally brought the idea of renaming 89th Street in David Tapper’s honor to city officials, spoke of the dangers that Tapper faced as a Navy Seal, an elite member of the military specializing in harrowing missions,
“David kept the bad guys over there, so we could enjoy freedom here,” Griffies told the crowd at the ceremony.
Tapper was fatally wounded when his convoy encountered enemy forces in Afghanistan on Aug. 20, 2003. Only months before Tapper was killed, he was part of the Navy Seal team that famously 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.
Griffies recounted how Tapper found the badly wounded Lynch during the rescue. Tapper tore a patch of the American flag off his uniform and placed it in Lynch’s hands to assure her that “we’re taking you home,” Griffies said.
It was during his childhood vacation days in Sea Isle that Tapper dreamed of joining the military and becoming a Navy Seal, his mother said.
Tapper loved the shore so much that he would tell his mother that he had “salt water and sand” in his veins, not blood, Griffies said.
His displeasure upon learning that the family’s shore home was sold in 1990 prompted him to steal the street sign at 89th Street.
“David M. Tapper, in 1990, you lost a home. In 2022, you own a street,” Griffies said of the new sign in Tapper’s honor.
Judi Tapper, 82, extended her gratitude to Griffies and Desiderio as well as the other veterans and city officials who attended the ceremony.
“It was very emotional,” she said.
Judi Tapper 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.
Now 82, Judi Tapper continues to maintain ties to Sea Isle. Each year in late September, she stands on 89th Street in observance of 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.
When she is in Sea Isle this coming September for the Run for Fallen, she plans to stand under the new sign at the corner of 89th Street and Landis Avenue that bears her late son’s name.
The sign is just up the street from the block of 89th Street where the former Tapper family home – the one where David Tapper spent his beloved summer vacations – once stood. The old home has since been replaced by a newer house.
