The Iraq Plaque of Jesus - July 1968

I turned two in June of 1968 and about 3 weeks later Iraq was in the news. My Mom would turn on the Noon newscast on channel 7 CJAY and I remember sitting on the sofa but not looking at the tv.

Then I started hearing the words "Iraq". For some odd reason I then focussed on this ceramic plaque of Jesus that my Mom's Mom gave to her shortly before I was born.

Well, I must have heard her mention the word "plaque" because my mind joined those two words up and voila! -- instant toddler daytime nightmare.

My Mom was in the kitchen and as I sat there on the sofa, I started to scream for her to take down the plaque because it was scarring me. But she did not come. She just didn't understand what I was complaining about. I remember even pointing out the plaque to her.

She later removed it I think, but then the next day the same thing would happen. I'd be listening (but not watching) the local newscast, and then I guess they cut to the reporter's story on the latest in Iraq, and I'd freak out, closing my ears and screaming and wanting my Mom to take down the plaque of Jesus.


NOTE: Facebook doesn't go directly to the post on Blogger, so here is a link to the Jesus plaque.

Years later I recalled this and through the power of the Internet found out that Sadam Hussein had been a newsmaker on July 17, 1968. He had staged a coup of the Iraqi government and overthrew it between that date and July 30th.

1968 - On 17 July the Baath Party returns to power in a bloodless coup that Saddam has helped organise. A group of Sunni Iraqis from Tikrit take the top posts in the new Baath government. Bakr is made president. Saddam is appointed as acting deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (the government's most powerful decision-making body).

On 30 July Saddam takes personal charge of a purge to rid the new government of old-guard figures. Two months later, following an unsuccessful coup attempt against it, the Baath government cracks down again, with Saddam and Bakr directing a further series of purges designed to eliminate opposition.

SOURCE: MorOrLess.AU.Com

I guess back then my brain heard the words "plaque" and "Iraq" and somehow thought they were somehow connected to one another. In reality the words just rhymm with one another.

The moral of this story is this. Parents, if your kids are screaming about something, perhaps you should listen to and attend to them, because it could be that they are having some kind of experinece like I had.