The Northwest Voice

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It isn’t often that two students from the same modestly-sized hometown garner a prestigious appointment to the military academies at West Point or Annapolis in the same year. In fact, when only around 1,300 students are chosen from over 11,000 applications per year in the United States, the honor of being selected at all is noteworthy. The honor is even greater if the two local students receiving the congressional nominations also attended the same high school.

Centennial High School graduates Kyle Smith, 21, and Brock Genter, 21, recently received their congressional nominations and their appointments to West Point. They were two of the first applicants chosen from the state of California for the 2012 graduating class.

But that’s not all.

They will join Cameron and Derek Wales, also from the Northwest, who preceded them to the East Coast shortly after high school graduation.

That’s four students from the same small niche of Northwest Bakersfield who can claim the distinction of being accepted and appointed to the nation’s premier military academies, the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York and the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Certainly impressive, but wait: add the fact that all four young men attended the same birthday parties, went on each others’ family vacations, went to neighboring elementary schools — and lived within a one-mile radius of each other.

Now, there’s a story.

Cameron and Derek Wales grew up in a modest and humble home, the place, their friends say, where everyone hung-out. Two of those friends, Kyle and Brock, lived close enough that everyone but Brock attended Discovery Elementary School (Brock went to Norris), and everyone but Derek attended Centennial High School (Derek decided to go to Garces).

Cameron, 21, and Derek, 19, made their decisions to apply for military academy during high school. The other two young men needed to live a little, grow a little and develop a real sense of what they wanted for their futures.

Cameron, Derek and Kyle met up with Brock in 2001 and became a fast foursome. The Wales house became the meeting place on weekends, where the boys would “camp out” and play Halo on xBox.

Despite the coincidence that they were all friends and mostly attended the same elementary and high schools, there was no master plan to attend military academy together. No one talked about it. None of them was in ROTC or in any other junior military program that might have given some indication. They just liked to have fun.

Debra Wales, Cameron and Derek’s mother, remembers them playing games like “Capture the Flag” in the dirt field behind Greenacres gym, but she doesn’t remember specifically when the boys decided on military college.

Derek may have known first.

“I made my decision that I wanted to come (to West Point) right around the time I entered high school,” he said, but he couldn’t nail down exactly what triggered his initial desire.

“I think that the proximity to September 11 had something to do with my decision,” said Derek, currently in his second year at West Point.

Derek’s brother, Cameron, who chose the naval academy in Annapolis, took a little longer to decide.

“I had figured on the military and a technical degree, so it really was only a matter of time before I put the two together,” said Cameron, currently in his third year at Annapolis.

But Kyle wasn’t as ready after graduation. “My GPA in high school wasn’t competitive enough. I wasn’t mature enough,” he said. So he enrolled at Bakersfield College. It took three years in junior college bettering his grades and maturing before Kyle decided on West Point.

For Brock, it took some more time and the idea of a different career. “I went and played hockey in Montana for a while, moved back, and realized I wanted to go to West Point. Cal State didn’t feel right. I knew after the first quarter,” he said.
So, they started preparing.

The process for admission to a military academy isn’t easy. Applicants must write essays, get letters of reference and must obtain a presidential or congressional nomination. There’s also a physical fitness test they must pass.

It’s like a lottery — military style, only instead of money, applicants use their grade point average, SAT scores, physical fitness and community service credits and hope to win the prize: four years of college, a full ride scholarship and salary on which to live while attending school. All graduates earn a Bachelor of Science degree, and they all graduate as officers but must serve five years in their respective branch of the military.

Perhaps there’s a good reason the application process is so thorough. The academies are tough. Just ask Cameron, who underestimated the toughness of his course selection.

“When I initially signed up to be an applied physics major, I was ignorant to the large number of courses with very dense mathematics that the curriculum held,” he said.

Choosing among the applicants is a process to find the best of the best.
“It’s an ‘overall person’ concept,” said Alberto Daniel, aerospace science instructor at Bakersfield High School and retired Air Force Master Sergeant, in describing the selection process of any military academy. Daniel explained that the military academies look for involvement within a community, varsity sports and at least a 3.76 GPA. “It’s real competitive.”

Both Kyle and Brock are eager to start the next chapter in their lives. They are finishing this year in school, then both starting all over as freshmen when they report to West Point on June 30.

Cameron and Derek survived their “plebe” years (first year at academy) and continue to work hard. Because they must.

“All of these young men have always walked to a different beat and done what they wanted to do,” said Debra Wales, who has moved with her husband to the East Coast to be closer to their two sons. “We’re just so proud of all the boys.”

In that, she is not alone.