Naugatuck Iraq War Veteran to be Part of Panel Discussion at CCSU

A Naugatuck resident who served in Iraq a year after the war started is going to be part of a panel discussion at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday.

Borough native Robert Rachuba is one of six veterans from the Iraq War that will participate on the panel, which is being point on by both CCSU and WNPR, the Hartford-based NPR affiliate in the state of Connecticut.

The event, titled the "Coming Home" Project, is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, at the university’s Davidson Hall in New Britain.

Rachuba, 28, served in Iraq as a member of the U.S. Army between 2004 and 2005. He was was wounded three times and has been awarded with two Purple Hearts, he said. Rachuba is now a student at CCSU with a major in criminology.

In an email to Naugatuck Patch, Rachuba said the discussion will focus on the veteran students' experiences overseas, as well as what it's like to come home and go to college after being in war.

The event is free and members of the public are encouraged to attend, Rachuba said.

John Dankosky, the host of WNPR’s morning show “Where We Live,” which focuses on issues facing state residents, is the lead organizer of the event. Lucy Nalpathanchil, a WNPR correspondent and host, is the lead reporter on the Coming Home Project.

The program will be re-broadcast on Where We Live, although the website doesn’t specifically state what day that will happen. The show typically goes on at 9 a.m. daily. For borough residents, the station to tune into is 90.5 FM.

Here’s an excerpt from CCSU’s event page:

With the Iraq War ended and withdrawal from Afghanistan imminent, the United States is seeing a flood of veterans coming home from war. Many are returning with physical, mental and emotional wounds that take time to heal and are little understood by the civilian population. And these vets coming home to a nation still in economic trouble, where jobs are tough to come by. As part of a yearlong reporting project, WNPR is talking to Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans about their stories of deployment, conflict, return and re-integration.