This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories, and on this show, we consider it a privilege to honor those who have given their lives in combat for others.

And so does Heather McPherson, who is the curator of history at the South Carolina Military Museum.

In fact, it's the reason she's at the museum in the first place.

Here's Heather to tell us more.

Music in the first place. Here's Heather to tell us more. So when I was growing up, my mom had photos on our piano of her uncles, and I was always interested in this one, like, I want to know his story. His name was Ralph Ferguson and he served in the 29th Division during World War

2 and landed on Omaha Beach first wave and made it to June 12th before he was killed in

action.

It was about 12 miles in near the El River.

So I grew up kind of hearing bits and pieces of that story and, you know, throughout, you know, teenage, you get other priorities when you're a teenager and everything, but, you know, I loved history class and stuff like that. But I was kind of, you know, every once in a while, I dig into it a story a little bit. And then, you know, after college, I really dove into it. There was so much more available on the internet and getting in contact with people and just kind of made it like a

side mission of mine to figure out his story. And I just kind of found some sense of purpose trying to tell his story.

The family didn't really talk about it. Brothers didn't want to mention him, the mother. And so my grandma grew up not knowing a lot about what happened to him.

And same with his widow, didn't really know a lot.

So me being able to piece together his few days in country and what he might have gone through

and even finding mentions of him in books and stuff it was it was

this really incredible journey and just got me more interested in other aspects of war two and then

eventually other military in general yeah i was actually found a mention of him and one of steve

and ambrose's books one of the soldiers under his, he was the second lieutenant in the 29th division.

He was talking like he always felt sorry for him because he had to read his soldiers mail and censor it.

And he knew that he was getting really close to these men after having to censor their mail

and that he didn't want to lose any of them. And he kind of reminded me of him taking care of his younger brothers and his younger sisters always being the man in the house because he actually lost his father a year before he got deployed. So he was like, I'm torn. I want to take care of my men, but I know my family needs me at home. And it's just, you know, World War II was just an era where so many people stepped up and did what they needed to do. He's writing letters back home, like, you know, his mother's learning how to drive for the first time because she doesn't have someone to do that for. And, you know, talking to my grandmother, like, well, haven't you learned how to drive yet, Bertha and help, help mother, you know, fill the car with gas? And I could just sense, you know, this pool of him

wanting to be in two places at once.

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