Military Veterans Suffer from Service Related Asbestos Illnesses

The use of asbestos in industrial applications can be traced back to the Greeks, who used the mineral because of its heat and flame resistant qualities. Derived from the Greek word, meaning inextinguishable, asbestos popularity reached its climax in the 20th century among industries and manufacturers.

The United States government and asbestos manufactures have been heavily criticized for concealing and not acting enough to inform the public of the dangers associated with asbestos exposure. Asbestos exposure has affected various industries including the military, real estate, power generation and shipyards.

It’s fire resistant, versatile and durable qualities paved the way for its uses as insulation in aircraft, vehicles and buildings. Asbestos appeared on most vessels used by the Navy and in shipyards. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated that out of the 25 million military veterans living today in the country, hundreds of thousands were exposed to asbestos while on service. As many as four million service men and women worked in shipyards repairing and building giant vessels. Thousands of tons of asbestos were used as piping and boiler insulation aboard navigation rooms, sleeping quarters and mess halls in ships.

Frequent exposure to airborne asbestos fibers can increase the chances of developing asbestos-related illness such as malignant mesothelioma, a fatal lung ailment. Mesothelioma survival rate varies from patient to patient for many reasons. These include age of diagnosis, latency period and cigarette smoking.

Miscellaneous Exposure Settings

The potential remains for another generation of veteran and civilian asbestos exposure. Military personnel and citizens should be aware of the hazards involved with this obsolete substance and take the proper initiatives to avoid exposure.

The World Trade Center attacks of September 11th, 2001 set about 2,000 tons of asbestos in the air and resulted in 62 percent of those caught in the dust cloud coping with respiratory problems. Natural disasters are also potential exposure settings. Hurricane Katrina damaged thousands of older asbestos containing homes. Almost three years after the storm, states of the Gulf coast region are still struggling to restore buildings and prevent asbestos exposure.

United States combat troops have been stationed in Iraq and face many extreme dangers on a daily basis. Aside from performing military operations, there is the potential threat of asbestos exposure. Over $194,000 worth of asbestos was imported into Iraq in 2003, documents reveal.

This presents a significant hazard for all soldiers stationed in the country because intense winds and desert sands can carry asbestos dust for long distances.

Military veterans and civilians who have developed an asbestos-related disease find themselves in a tough situation when attempting to receive assistance and benefits for their wrongful illness. Currently, mesothelioma is not readily recognized as a service-related medical ailment. However, veterans can apply for Veteran Affairs (VA) benefits for asbestos-related illness and must provide proof that their exposure occurred at the time of their military service.

I went ahead and changed the comments to "dofollow" on this blog.  If you are not sure what "dofollow" is I will tell you.  When search engine spiders crawl websites they look for links and in the code if there is a tag that says rel="nofollow".  It tells the spider not to follow the link which in turn causes the link not to count toward page ranking.

I changed my tags to rel="dofollow" which means that when you write a comment and leave your url, it will give you an actual link.  I did this simply to encourage for participation in conversation.  This blog has been pretty stagnant for the last few months and needs more traffic and sunscribers.

I plan to write more conversation worthy material for now on as well.  Before I was just writing about anything and everything that interests me.  I realize that no matter how you look at it, people just want to go to blogs that have more focused subject matter.  I plan to narrow down the subjects on this blog.

So stand by, I plan on writing some great posts in the future.  By the way let me know if you notice your urls are not getting links so I can make sure this thing works.

If don’t know by now, know there has been a major disaster recently in Victoria, Australia.  Huge brush fires that are now believed to be the act of arson have already claimed the lives of over 181 people and destroyed 750 homes.  This is one of the worst disasters Australia has ever seen.  The real sad part is that the fires may have been started intentionally.  This is mass murder on a very sick level and I hope the worse for the people who started these fires.

Sitepoint has posted about an opportunity to get 5 books in PDF format for the price of 1.  You can choose up to 5 books for just $29.99! 

The best part is that 100% of the money will go to help the victims of the recently and horrible brush fires that ravaged through Victoria, Australia.  So basically Sitepoint is giving away 5 books to you just for you to donate $30 to the fire victims!

Don’t wait because this opportunity only lasts until this Friday, the 13th. Click Here to donate right now!

Please help spread the word by linking to this post and sharing it with as many people as you can.

This post is dedicated to all military veterans out there.  It is unfortunate how many U.S. Military Verterans are unaware of the potential benefits they may be entitled to for their services as a military professional.

One such benefit is called R.E.A.P.  The Reserve Educational Assistance Program.  What is REAP?  REAP is a new Department of Defense education benefit to veterans who served on active duty in response to war or national emergency.  Most recently, would be the war in response to the attacks of September 11th. 

If you served at least 90 days of active duty service during Operation Iraqi Freedom II, then you may be eligible for education benefits.  Be sure to visit the REAP section on the the V.A. website for all of the details to this program.

Back in 2004 I served around 8 months of active duty time during OIF II.

I recently decided I was going to go after my MBA so I enrolled in this program a few weeks ago.  This morning I got up and checked the mail and received a package from the V.A.  I was delighted to when I read the first line of the document inside.  It read as follows:

“Dear Mr. Moreno, This certifies that you are entitled to benefits for an approved program of education or training under the Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP).  You have 12 months and 0 days of full time benefits remaining.  You have until October 6, 2014, to use your benefits under this program.”

Trust me, I don’t need until 2014 to use this money.  I was already planning on starting in March of 2009.  Based on the payout breakdown from the V.A. I should receive about $220 a month from this program to go toward my stiff $2100 dollar tuition per class at Keller Graduate School of Management.

I was also delighted to learn that I also qualify for another program called the Veteran Appreciation Grant. This is an exclusive program that Keller offers.  I think it is an additional $250 off the tuition charges.  So, if I do decide to go to Keller, I could have up to about $910 off the tuition fees per class!

This certainly makes me feel much better about the time I served on active duty.  All other veterans should feel this way as well.  This is why I encourage all other veterans to take advantage of the programs that they qualify for.  First off you deserve it, simply because you have made true sacrifices for our country.  Second, you pay taxes even in the military, so you are helping pay for these programs anyway!

So don’t waste time, get online or head over to your local V.A. office and enroll for what is rightfully yours. 

If you are a veteran and are reading this article I suggest you subscribe to my blog.  I am always researching and will post any other information I discover in the future.  Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  Godspeed!

I am a regular user of Myspace and I recently became friends with Tila Tequila.  She just came out with a book, which was released today, and she held a signing.  The debut went smooth up until she started posting pictures of her fans on her page.

People began posting hater comments on the pictures and started bashing her fans.  This upset Tila to the point where she created a video and posted it on her myspace blog.  Here is the video she uploaded on Youtube.

She is obviously very upset that people could do this to her fans.  She likes to use the “F” word a lot as you can tell also.  People followed many of those comments with comments to Tila telling her she should not worry about those haters, etc.

It is nice to see how much she cares about her fans though.  All celebrities should care about their fans because they are what make them celebrities.  I have met some that treat their fans like crap and it is surprising that they still have fans.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has been arrested! Watch the video on TMZ.COM then come back here.

Basically, he crashed into two cars on another freeway, then he drove off. When the police tracked him down (his truck has a giant picture of him on the side!) he attempted to flee the police. The police report says that he was even driving on the opposite side of the road and on the side walk and almost hitting people!

This is very disturbing news for Jackson fans because we know him as always a happy, funny and collective guy. There must have been some substances involved to put him out of his mind like that. Or maybe it was done on purpose to put the spot light back on him instead of Forest Griffen. Just kidding.

Anyway, it is certainly not cool for his career and I can’t help but to see what is going to happen to him. He is out on bail right now.

I doubt Nick Diaz was actually high during the match but he did test positive for marijuana after a fight. According to MMA Weekly he tested positive to a drug test after his fight with Takanori Gomi. You should read the full article on this site for full details.

I wonder what they were thinking when they saw the test come positive. Do you think they thought he won because he had THC in his system?

Here is a piece taken from MMA Weekly, Regarding the subject of marijuana use among mixed martial artists in general, NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer said to MMAWeekly last month,

“The main issue with marijuana is it slows the reflexes, putting the fighter at much greater risk. We would not let a fighter compete who is coming off arm surgery and has not fully recovered his reflexes, or who is under the influence of alcohol because of the same issue. Additionally, it may also deaden some pain. That could hurt the fighter… he may not tap out when he should and he suffers broken bones or torn ligaments as a result… or that could unfairly help him if he can trade punches more easily with his opponent.” MMA Weekly.

According to another article I read, Marijuana can decrease your performance in sports as timing, movements, and coordination are all affected by the THC in marijuana.

This is certainly a controversial subject but I think it is better to say that no drugs should be allowed to be used in any fighting situation due to the possibility of an unfair advantage or possibility of injury to the fighter. MMA is a great sport and should be regulated as such that it provides the maximum amount of entertainment yet provides regulations which keep fighters in check.