LITTLE ROCK — Ken Aden withdrew from Arkansas’ 3rd District congressional race on Monday, saying revelations about his military record had become a “tremendous distraction” and he didn’t want that to negatively affect other Democrats running for office in Arkansas.
Aden, 33, of Russellville has said repeatedly that he was a Green Beret, but his military records show that he flunked out of the year-long Special Forces qualification course three times and never finished.
After the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette received Aden’s military records through a Freedom of Information Act request, he said he completed the course but that he never served in a Special Forces unit.
Aden washed out of Special Forces training in 2008 and was transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division, the unit he belonged to last year when he was honorably discharged from the Army as a staff sergeant after 11 years of service - including two deployments to Iraq.
Aden’s claims that he had qualified as a Green Beret were based on a 2008 order issued in error two months after he failed the Special Forces Qualification Course.That order - issued to soldiers while in training - listed him as having the specialty of Special Forces weapons sergeant, noted in military documents as an “18B” designation.
The Army issued an order July 3 correcting the error by canceling the earlier orders.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first published an article about the discrepancies June 28.
That article also included information about Aden’s academic record. He said he has an associate’s degree from Arkansas State University, but an employee in the registrar’s office said the school has no record that Aden attended the college. Aden promised to produce his college records but hasn’t.
Aden didn’t return a call seeking comment Monday.
However, Aden said in a prepared statement that he is leaving the race to spend more time with his family and to help ensure victory for other Democrats running for office in Arkansas.
“I sincerely regret any difficulty that this situation has caused my fellow Democrats, my supporters and staff,” Aden said in the release. “I will continue to remain a loyal Democrat and [do] my best to help Democrats ... win in November.”
Candace Martin, spokesman for the Arkansas Democratic Party, said the withdrawal means the party will have no candidate in the race against U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican and former mayor of Rogers.
Martin’s assessment was based on Arkansas Code Annotated 7-7-104(c)(1), which states that a replacement candidate can be fielded only if the other candidate dies, becomes ill, moves out of the district or runs for another office.
“We certainly respect Ken’s decision to withdraw from the race,” Martin said. “He has a young family to consider. And I’m sure it will be good for him to have more time at home to focus on his family.”
The party had recently asked Aden to apologize to military members for exaggerating his record, but he hasn’t.
On Monday, Womack, too, said that Aden should apologize.
“I respect Mr. Aden’s decision and am sorry for his misfortune, but I still believe he owes the Special Forces community an apology,” Womack said.
Aden’s departure from the race “doesn’t change a thing,” said Womack, who still faces two other candidates: Rebekah Kennedy of Fort Smith for the Green Party and Libertarian David Pangrac of Van Buren.
Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe told The Associated Press that Aden’s withdrawal was a good decision.
“You can’t run a political race on a basis of statements that are just so - I guess - out of whack,” Beebe said to the AP.
In addition to his military service, Aden has worked recently with two nonprofit groups.
Aden was an organizer of two nonprofit organizations in two states, according to secretary of state records: Citizens 4 Change Dayton in Ohio in 2010 and Residents 4 Arkansas in West Memphis in 2011.
The Ohio organization was formed to “improve communities by connecting individuals in neighborhoods to solve problems,” according to its incorporation filing. The Arkansas nonprofit had a similar mission in West Memphis.
Neither of those organizations had federal tax-exempt status, said Michael Devine, a spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service in St. Louis.
Gary Leitzell, mayor of Dayton, remembers Aden mostly for his enthusiasm.
“He had a lot of energy,” Leitzell said. “I felt maybe he was a little over ambitious,maybe a little naive that he could achieve some of the things he wanted to achieve here in Dayton, but I admire his spirit.”
Aden wanted to set up food pantries in parts of Dayton, Leitzell said, but instead of talking to people who were running similar nonprofit organizations, Aden approached the challenge as if nobody else had thought of helping the needy. There are 1,200 nonprofit organizations in the Dayton area, the mayor said.
Aden had a youthful optimism that hadn’t been tempered by real-world frustrations, Leitzell said.
“When you hit brick walls a few times, it humbles you,” the mayor said. “A lot of us were trying to say, ‘There are ways to do things.’”
Citizens 4 Change Dayton fizzled, Leitzell said. Aden left the organization last year and moved to Arkansas.
In Ohio, Aden went by the name Ken Wade, Leitzell said. Wade is Aden’s middle name.
David Esrati, a friend of Aden’s when the two lived in Dayton, remembers Aden’s infectious enthusiasm.
“I was blown away by the way he walked into town - he actually dropped out of the sky from nowhere - and got people to follow him like little puppy dogs,” Esrati said.
But Aden isn’t remembered as fondly for his nonprofit efforts in Arkansas.
Aden planned a run through Crittenden County to raise food for the Good Neighbor Center, said Dana Parker of West Memphis, but the city didn’t want its name affiliated with the effort.
“When something comes at you real quick and fast, and you don’t know anything about the person, you just get suspicious of it,” said Parker, who is on the board of the Good Neighbor Center, which provides disaster and emergency relief assistance.
“I’ve always heard the expression, ‘If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.’”
David Peeples, city attorney in West Memphis, said he called Aden last year and asked him to remove the city’s seal from the Residents 4 Arkansas website, and Aden did.
The center did get some food donations from Aden’s run, Parker recalled.
Aden completed a similar run for charity in Northwest Arkansas in late April and early May, his campaign said.
A May 11 news release from his campaign said 11,500 cans of food Aden collected would go to food banks and food pantries in the 3rd District.
Lorenzo Parker, parks and recreation director in West Memphis, said Aden’s Arkansas nonprofit planned to help resurface 12 tennis courts at Tilden Rogers Sports Complex last summer, but that never happened.
“Ken came to a meeting and was going to raise funds for us to redo our tennis court,” Parker said. “He was all gung ho about it, but he never raised a dime. We haven’t heard a word from him since. He just disappeared all at once. The next thing I heard he was running for Congress out of Russellville, Ark.”
Aden told people in West Memphis that his father lived there, Peeples said.
A video online at youtube.com/watch?v=2gInNQ-6Q7o shows Aden talking about Residents 4 Arkansas. In his message to the people of West Memphis, he said crime in the city needs to be addressed.
“My father was killed on his way to work in West Memphis,” Aden says in the video.
But according to a Jan. 5, 1995, article in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Louis Herman Aden, Ken’s father, was shot and killed by his estranged wife when he broke down the door to her trailer in Tyronza in Poinsett County.
A sheriff’s detective said at the time it was likely to be ruled a justifiable homicide, and Aden said in a Nov. 25 article in the Democrat-Gazette that his stepmother was cleared.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/10/2012