Veterans' Advocate teams with host of professionals to provide answers and advice at "Straight Talk for Military Veterans."

-------------------------

Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.  If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...  The archive of Jim's articles is here...  To find an answer to a specific VA benefits question, use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here... 

Be sure to use Jim's:  "A to Z GUIDE OF VETERANS DISABILITY COMPENSATION BENEFITS" click here...  

And, for answers to questions and great advice, go to Jim's discussion board, "STRAIGHT TALK FOR MILITARY VETERANS" click here...

Follow Jim on TWITTER here ...

-------------------------

EDITOR'S NOTE from Larry Scott

A couple of years ago I told Jim Strickland, "I have had it with veterans' discussion boards."  I went on to rant about the incredible amount of bad information being spread around the Web.

Now, Jim has decided to do something about that.  Please use this board ... you are in good hands.

-------------------------

Announcement from Jim Strickland

I've given this a lot of thought and Larry and I have talked of it for the last couple of years. The timing seemed right so I've opened a discussion board. I called it "STRAIGHT TALK for Military Veterans" The emphasis is on STRAIGHT TALK and I'm committed to keeping it that way.

Sometimes called a "forum" the site provides interested veterans a way to post questions, comments, announcements and other information they need to share. It's also a social place to meet new friends and to talk about anything that you can think of.

Larry will tell you that we had concerns about doing this. There are plenty of other, similar boards on the Internet. Discussion boards are notoriously difficult to control; Spam announcements, flamers and people who just enjoy disrupting others take advantage of the openness of boards to insert their own brand of ugliness.

A board must be carefully moderated to keep it controlled. We've been fortunate to have 3 people, <duke>, <womenvets> & <wendi> step up and volunteer their skills and experience. They are managers who have authority to block any user who isn't following the simple rules and to delete and content that doesn't meet our standard. The board isn't a democracy ruled by the members, it's a benevolent dictatorship with rule coming from the mother ship, the vast headquarters buildings of VA Watchdog dot Org.

We decided to keep it as simple as possible. This is a Google Group, using all Google software and tools.

The rules are simple too. You must register. When you register I suggest that you use a secondary email address (a throw-away) so that your main email won't be full of messages from the board.

You may use a pseudonym or "email handle" if you wish to keep your true identity cloaked. We understand that you may have a genuine fear of reprisal from an employer or even the government and blurring your ID may encourage you to ask the sensitive questions you're otherwise afraid to. The Gmail service works well for that. It's free, easy to sign up and is a powerful system. Click here for your free account http://mail.google.com .

There is but one rule that guides posting: Keep it courteous, polite and factual. That's it. Nobody cares if your spelling and sentence construction is good or not. You won't be flamed or criticized. Discussions are currently ranging from gays and lesbians in the military to the basics of how to file an appeal and all topics between.

Who might answer your question if you go there and post it? There are veterans lawyers, Veterans Service Officers, VA Employees, former (retired) VA staff and veterans who have a wealth of experience with their own claims that they can share with you. The Managers and I read all of this to ensure that you get reliable data when you post here.

Our goal is to make this board unique. Our managers will be more controlling to ensure that you get great data, not rumors or "I heard this is how that should be done." We'll be keeping it clean. I'm no prude and this is a site for military leaning folks but I don't see much sense in using a profanity laced screed when it would read better without those expletives.

We'll keep it respectful. Disagreement is great. The VA employees and the lawyers probably aren't always going to see eye to eye on some decisions. In the STRAIGHT TALK forum, they will always respect the others opinion.

It isn't a site to visit to bash the VA. That's easy. Finding solutions is hard.

Welcome aboard.

http://groups.google.com/group/straight-talk-for-military-veterans

-------------------------

-------------------------

TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Jim Strickland, Veterans' Advocate,