Thanks Peter for your response

( after not being able to connect to the internet I did add some very broad 
firewall rules to monowall and the netgear router to see if that might help 
solve. It didn't.
hmmm

I know in monowall's interface page (webGUI) it show's that monowall 
retrieved a gateway IP from the ISP. It also grabbed a primary dns server IP 
and an alternative.

Verizon doesn't assign anything. The real authentication that is required 
from them is on their mail servers. Everything else is a free for all 
basically (for non-PPPoE). I have confirmed that my Westell 2100 is a "dumb 
bridge modem" and doesn't do any real authentication.

At this point, this is making NO sense. I mean can understand if I am not 
able to grab an IP from the ISP that would be a reason I can not connect to 
the http www. But now I have all that and m0n0wall (which btw, hundreds if 
not thousands of small businesses run) still can't connect to the net.

(from the monowall box itself)

I pinged a yahoo IP address (216.109.112.135).......result..........no route 
to host.

I pinged one of my clients on the network 
(192.168.0.x)..........result.............100%packets lost.

I pinged my IP from the ISP............result..............boom, I get a 
reply. 0% loss.

It isn't like I am trying to set up a sophisticated vpn with ipsec or 
whatever. I am trying to get basic operations going.

~good grief~