BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Jonathan Parham’s great-grandfather did not get to finish his West Point experience 90 years ago, but it’s a very different world these days. For Jonathan, the mission was accomplished.

The 22-year-old Frontier High School graduate has just completed four years at the U.S. Army Academy – an achievement in itself. But the newly minted Army lieutenant also achieved closure for a difficult piece of family history. His great-grandfather, Alonzo Parham, was dismissed from West Point in 1929.

“I know it was cut short after six months,” Jonathan, who was greeted at Meadows Field by his father, Mark, said Wednesday afternoon. “I know the official reason was academics, but I know he had a lot of difficulty in terms of discrimination.”

Let the record show Alonzo Parham – the only Black cadet at West Point at the time – was out marching for minor infractions at all hours instead of sleeping or studying. So, Jonathan’s West Point experience was also a resolution of sorts. 

Jonathan’s father Mark Parham certainly believes that.

“I think about my grandfather, his great-grandfather, who started this journey,” he said. “And I called it a journey of generations.  My grandfather started it but wasn’t able to finish it at West Point. But my son, his great-grandson, was able to complete that journey.”

“I always felt that I was carrying that with me when I went through (West Point),” Jonathan said. “The first six months, which is probably the toughest time during West Point to be a plebe, I knew that it really couldn’t compare to anything that he put up with while he was there.  And I had the support, I had amazing faculty, I had amazing officers and NCOs, I had really good friends, I had roommates that I could rely on that he didn’t have when he was there.  So I really didn’t have any excuse to fail.”

Among Jonathan’s achievements at West Point was a starring role on the university boxing team. 

“I saw how the military shaped him,” Mark Parham said of his son. “How his fellow cadets (interacted) – the bond that he formed with them. The boxing team that he was on was an incredibly strong bond. And when I got to go up there to see him box, I got to witness that.”

Jonathan is now commissioned into the infantry — and Airborne school is in his future. But first will be 10 days of vacation in Bakersfield, and a test from his 15-year-old brother, Gavin.

“I’ve got a (weight) lifting contest with my little brother going,” he said. “Whoever loses shaves his head, so I might be reporting bald.”

Bald or not, he’ll be reporting. He reached the finish line at West Point and now the world awaits.  

Jonathan Parham isn’t the only new West Point graduate from Bakersfield. Also among the 950 new West Point graduates are Noah Lozano, Ryan Aguilar and Nathan Jones.