Ken Aden supporters; Don’t try this at home
Tim and I have been trying for days now to get Ken Aden’s DD214 that he supposedly “publicly released” to a select few media outlets. They confused me with Tim and think Tim owns this blog. So much for amateurs investigating anything. But now, this idiot at Blue Arkansas thinks he has a blockbuster defense of Aden and has the temerity to call this a right wing blog. Actually, dimbulb, we’re a military blog and I’m about to show you why we’re a military blog and why you shouldn’t try to do what we do. Here’s what he thinks is proof that Ken Aden didn’t lie when he said he is a Green Beret;
Yup, he can read – it says SF Weapons Sergeant right there in the circle. But look at the last unit in block 8a – 73rd Armor isn’t a special forces unit, last I checked. The date of the DD214 coincides with the date in his FOIA and yet in the Military Education block (suspiciously missing from the DD214) doesn’t mention SFQC. There is no Special Forces tab in the decorations and awards block of the FOIA (another block suspiciously missing from the abbreviated DD214).
Of course, Aden’s defenders take the route of questioning the veracity of the FOIA instead of asking why they only got half of his DD214. Smooth move there, guys. No soup for you.
Category: Phony soldiers
Okay, I’m not in the military, but it says he did 8 years as an indirect guy, and then 2 years 9 month as SF.
But block 12 says he did 8 years active total. Even adding in the prior active/inactive doesn’t equal 10 years 9 months.
It also says there is no Initial Entry Training in block 12h, however he has 6 months prior inactive service (DEP?) and 10 months 20 days of total prior service. Aden must have joined in the DEP program originally, gotten hurt right after basic and medically separated, then join back up later. I bet he got hurt at RIP or SFAS and now wants to walk around like he made it through.
Funny how a Journalism degree qualifies you to analyze service records.
Well done!
These clowns just have no idea how to react to real professionals, do they? Poor babies.
And congrats, Tim. Your “promotion” alone should prove to the idiots just how incompetant they are.
Yeah, I doubt it, too.
Yep, even if he was injured or for some other reason, got reassigned back to Division, SFQC would have been on his DD-214.
If this was all they posted, it’s no wonder the rest of the form isn’t present.
All,
The prior service can be explained by his National Guard time. As for the rest of the document, I have spoken with an editor and he went line by line on the whole document. All that is listed in the schools/education section is WLC, BNCOC and Armorer. Further, a call to JFK Special Warfare Center for a Tab Check concluded with him not being listed in their database.
Please do not post up what is missing, we don’t want the next guy to come along doing this to know what to look for. Also, the Little Rock FBI Field Office has been notified and they are looking into this.
I guess ole Barney fife here isn’t as backward as they think.
Busted! @#4 CI-you are absolutely correct!
You’re being disingenuous, Jonn. Everyone knows veterans are either rabid gorillas who when not pillaging and smashing things are out to subjugate women, gays, and minorities.
The only other alternative is to be the gentle tortured soul who writes tacky emo poetry about their wrist cutting existential crisis. Triggered of course by the anguish they felt after witnessing half their double scooped Kabul Baskin Robbins ice cream cone fall on the floor.
War is hell.
Half a DD214, huh?
Kinda like bein’ half pregnant, ain’t it?
Sorry…I get bored in the afternoon, sometimes.
Came back here to tell Ann that was classic funny, but then you added yours, PN. Now, not sure which is better!
No. 7 — Masterful Sarcasm !!
I’m not sure Ann’s post was sarcasm…..I spent the majority of my career as a rabid gorilla, pillaging and smashing things.
A little less hair of course…..
While this may not be a “right wing blog”, it most certainly is a military blog with a right wing owner, contributors, about 99.9% of the commenters, and posts stories/comments that encourage current and former military personnel (some on active duty) to badmouth the Commander-in-Chief and anything he does. “But I’m an independent,” you may say. Now you’re just pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.
What sort of idiot runs for Congress, forges a DD 214 and lies about their service? Particularly in a place like Arkansas. It’s just asking to be publicly humiliated and having your political aspirations forever flushed down the drain. Also, the internet never forgets. From this day forward anyone who Googles his name will find out he’s a liar. Enjoy your future job applications Mr Aden.
re #13.
Not true. I contribute as the resident, closet Democrat.
The previous DD 214 shows Mr. Aden entering the military during his high school years. It also shows him to be in the air force which he was not. How can those two discrepancies be explained? I have read a good deal of information from the National Archive specifically about military records and there was a fair amount of information about the timing of when different divisions (sorry, I don’t know the correct wording) submitting records at different times and that often there are errors, including, human errors, leading to the need to amend records. The process is flexible for appealing records and having corrections made. For the person who called LR in order to verify his service, what identifying piece of information did you use? Were you able to get the number from his knife? His SSN? I guess I don’t understand the accessibility of this kind of information and/or what they even mean. All I can say, is that the two documents do not match date-wise and service-wise. Are there any other possible explanations for this?
@13 Ben: instead of making a half-assed effort to change the subject and/or shoot the messenger, how ’bout addressing the discrepancies and contradictions that Jonn and others have brought up, and getting Mr. Aden to post the REST of his DD-214?
Or is that too much to ask because 1) there is no explanation for those discrepancies and contradictions, and 2) showing the rest of the DD-214 would reveal that Mr. Aden is BSing everyone about his supposed Special Forces qualification?
Why didn’t he release the rest of his DD-214 in the first place? He need more time to figure out how to doctor the rest of it?
Olive Oil: The dates do match, if you’ll take the time to compare the “Active Army” dates on the FOIA to the dates of the DD214. They match exactly. I don’t why there is a month-and-a-half of Air Force Reserve time and why Aden doesn’t admit to it. But these are questions you should be asking him. Questions like; why is there only half of a DD214?
@14: Interesting. You must fit in like a square peg in a round hole :).
*sincere*
No. 15 — Come on back, OLIVE OIL !!
I haven’t heard from you or Popeye for a long, long while .
@16: I’ve busted lots of posers. This guy appears to be a poser. I didn’t even mention it, so why does it matter? Yes, I latched onto a sidebar, but I’m busy busting (or trying to) two posers and haven’t gotten any traction on either one. Just because I don’t agree with the majority worldview here on political matters doesn’t mean that I don’t a poser from the real thing. Also, a 214 isn’t a source document for anything he’s claiming re: SF qualification. Show me the orders awarding the tab, show me his ATRRS record with a “G” for graduated in ALL of the SF courses, and show me a verification memorandum from the USAJFKSWCS detailing that he graduated.
You know my Popeye? Or my Brutus?
http://aden4arkansas.com/?page_id=613
His campaign website doesn’t mention anything about SF service. Also, the Commisioned Officers Professional Development ribbon is suspect. Did he mean NCOPD ribbon?
I wonder how he ‘earned’ his CIB. That would be a great story to hear.
No. 21 — NO, I don’t know your men — just referring to the old days and style of the cartoon namesakes .
All The Best To You .
Ok Ben, I will bite. Find me a post where I encourged anyone to badmouth the CinC. Or are you claiming that I post less than 1% of the posts here.
Go ahead, I will wait.
What’s a girl have to have in order to “call to the JFK Special Warfare Center for a Tab Check”? A name? What?
@25, just the phone number I would imagine. It’s not like the keep secret folks who WEREN’T SF.
After looking through the stuff, I’m just curious why this guy wouldn’t just release his DD214. Hell, I sent mine to IVAW and those guys effen hate me, and this clown is running for Congress. If it says SFQC in there, then so be it, but the one I’m looking at doesn’t say that. So, call me more than a little curious.
Also Olive, you said the dates don’t match, but the separation date is the same.
2/27/2011 is Sep date on both.
So they wouldn’t say if he were in the database, but they would say if he weren’t? I’m slow on this kind of thing. Are most of the cases/allegations like this found to be true? If they were found to be false allegations, is it usually the dd 214 that is used to support/as evidence of fact to counter the allegation? What trumps all other documentation? Am I making sense?
Well, if you were just calling up to get a list of names, that would not work, but to verify a single person I would imagine that isn’t a problem. But yes, it is always the DD214 that proves it. Anything else is just sort of cumulative, and unless there’s a lot of stuff, I still wouldn’t buy it. I trust the DD214, the DD214, and only the DD214. If it isn’t on your DD214, it didn’t happen. If it did happen and isn’t on there, than you need to go and get it on there.
For instance, my Good Conduct Medal never got awarded until after I got out. I told them to throw it away because I am terrified that they might screw with my DD214 and my CIB would disappear. Now, I have the order # for my CIB, so I could go get it added if it came off (through a DD215) but I’d rather not tempt fate. When we were in Bosnia some clerk put “Hungary” on all our DD214’s. We refused to leave until it was corrected, despite them telling us they would fix it.
The 214 in short is absolutely sacrosanct.
@24: While you may not have a post that specifically says, “Bash the CINC”, the sheer nature of the posts, links, and comments on the site as a whole turns the CINC and his administration into a target rich environment where no one (not even currently serving active duty service members) mind saying some pretty harsh things behind a cloak of anonymity.
FYI: The DD-214 is never the be all-end all for a poser hunter. If someone really wants to prove it, pull out the source documents (orders, 4187’s, 638’s, etc.) See AR 635-5 and AR 600-8-104. Just remember that some of these folks preparing 214’s are GS-05 and GS-06 civilians who hate their jobs.
@31, nope, that’s not what you said. You said 99% of the posts urge people to disrespect the commander in chief. I asked you to find a single one of my posts that did that, or to assert I do not do 1% of the posts. Don’t give me a “punumbra of posts” argument. Show where I urged folks to disrespect the CinC.
TSO, you are misreading what I typed. I admit that it was an awkwardly constructed sentence. The 99.9% line went towards the commenters on the blog being right wing (along with the blog’s owner and what I mistakenly said was all the contributors). As a separate part to the sentence, I then stated that there are posts, stories, comments that bash the CINC or encourage it (not 99.9% of the time and not you specifically). Yes, it creates a strange environment when there are active duty involved in this blog when it takes a turn that way.
And I do apologize for that mixup, TSO. I always try to be clear when I type.
I suspect he was engaging in a bit of hyperbole re: 99%. This crowd does tend toward the right pretty heavily (as does the military/vet community in general, I suspect), and some of the commenters are over the top sometimes. I’ve never seen anything encouraging us to badmouth the CinC, though of course I could have missed it, and I’ve been reading here for a few years now.
@35: It’s the mob/pile-on mentality once it gets started. I will say this: while not a formal encouragement, once the negative energy starts, I’ve never seen it discouraged.
If nothing else, your present conversation is very encouraging. My opinion.
you can also vet SF members through Professionalsoldiers.com It is an online community for current and former SF QUALIFIED soldiers. They will be MORE then happy to assist. Aden will suffer a serious trouble when they find out. They don’t just post it the make sure EVERY ONE knows posers claim the long tab.
Some other things to ask Aden…what was his SF class? What team was he assigned to? What was his foreign language…all SF have to have one?
2 years SF huh? the pipeline to be SF doesn’t even match is two years. Unless I am waaaay off the pipeline would be 56-98 weeks long! And it is NOT consecutive. Most got o SFAS (Phase I) and wait back at their parent unit a while afterwards to find out if they made the cut.
Now…I am not 100% (I am not SF) but I am fairly certain that after being trained (even at the minimum of 56 weeks) the ARmy is not going to let a hard cold ninja like Aden walk out a year later. See…every time a troop takes on more training or makes a move he/she incurs more obligations. SF comes with a hefty re-enlistment. I think after all that training he would have to serve 3 years on the teams.
I don’t think I am far off the mark. The pipeline doesn’t support his two years.
You know what really sticks my hole?
When a feller from my state tries to pull the wool over the eyes of his fellow statesmen, just to further his ambition.
Excellent work, John. For exposing this fraud.
As for posting his other half of the DD214, let’s not hold our breath. It took the President 2 1/2 years to produce an obviously faked copy of his birth certificate. Lower levels of government have a 3 year max to produce stuff.
@31….as a civil servant (GS13) and an Army vet you need to correct that statement about how civil servants hate their jobs therefore we should expect crappy work.
Don’t look down your intelligence is showing.
I don’t think the CinC gets any help from the gang here with encouraging people to bad mouth him. He’s doing a good enough job encouraging it himself.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am a retired Special Forces Officer of 24 years. It pains me that someone that who has served honorably must try to steal honor from the brave men of the 1st Special Forces Regiment. Ken Aden served 11 years and 0 months as per his DD214, his MOS of 11C, Indirect Fire Infantryman shows a total of 11 years and 0 months service. Our checks with the Special Warfare Center show no such graduate and this fabricated DD214 shows no such award of the Special Forces Tab or other schools required to attain the 18B MOS.
Mr. Aden, you should apologize, publicly, to the Men of Special Forces. I care not of what you do concerning your political campaign. This will not however just go away.
@14: Liar!!!! You’re not a “closet” democrat. You came out a long time ago. However, what separates you from the drooling moonbat crowd is that you call it as you see it no matter who the CinC is, just as several of us have with our criticism when Bush was CinC. Obviously Ben wasn’t around when that was happening, otherwise he wouldn’t have said such stupid shit. There are/were several democrats that I held/hold in high regard and just 2 off the top of my head are Sam Nunn and Zell Miller (well, you are included in that group, too). Plus, the misconception by the drooling moonbat crowd is that the Tea Party is all right wing extremists, yet they probably have never been to a rally where republicans, democrats, and independents of all races and genders stand side by side and demand a better accounting from our government. I have bagged on just as many republicans as I have democrats, because the letter behind the name means less to me than the person who is standing there before me.
@20: When I presented my bona fides to Jonn, TSO, and Mr. Wolf, I presented everything I have, including travel orders, schools, LoCs, awards, promotions, 214, etc. Hell, Jonn was laughing when I broke out my folder from BCT in the original sheath.
I said that to say this; not everyone has all that and those things aren’t available to anyone on request. The only person that could provide such things is the person in question.
@1-Spade–it’s possible that MOS’s like Navy NEC’s can be held concurrently? IIRC, my 214 says I held a 3353 NEC for X, and 3363 for X minus a couple of years but it is possible to hold both at once.
And this may be a complete wild-assed guess, but can that 1 1/2 months of AF Reserve time be AF DEP, whereupon he was dropped due to RTO (refusal to obligate) or other form of DEP discharge?
NHSparky: I believe the USAF may have been reducing in size in the late 1990s. If so, it’s possible the USAF may have allowed him to request voluntary release from his committment due to reduced recruitment needs.
@38. Current SF graduates do have to have at least 3 years on their enlistment. Per my son who graduated with the latest SF group this month. He had to extend his contract to 3 full years not the 2 that were remaining.
I found the MOS odd. I have never seen an 18 series MOS with no ASI’s (additional skill identifiers) other than parachutist. Graduating from Ranger school automatically rates either a “G” (leg Ranger) or “V” (airborne Ranger). But a quick look and I didn’t see an identifier for SFQC.
Still odd because I have never seen an 18B3P. Maybe I just never noticed or maybe I spent too much time with a bunch of serious badge hunters.
@40: Congrats on being a GS-13. Looking at the pay scale for “Rest of the US” and a step 1 at your grade makes 81K. GS-05 and GS-06 step 1’s make 31K and 34K, respectively. Trade salaries with them and see how much you like your job. I’m not just whistling Dixie. Look at job satisfaction ratings and you will find many Army agencies near the bottom. There are many agencies that have zero upward mobility. Heck, I’ve seen civilians canceled from CES courses because HQDA didn’t have the money. I’m glad you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ve seen civilians and contractors at SRP sites, MPDs, and DMPOs who fit this category, just to name a few locations (I mention these specifically as they affect Soldiers on a daily basis and get a lot of user ICE complaints).
Is there anyone out there that still thinks this guy was a green beret?
To me the only question left is whether he was assigned as an 18B but never went through the school, or whether the DD214 was forged.
My guess is the former. Although I can’t explain why that would happen. Then again, for a day I was a shower point installation technician and I never went to school for that either.