Chick's War

Not a colorful figure, he said. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

We’ll start today’s story in April 1942, in the Philippines. Charles Thomas Parsons Jr. had been stranded with his family after the Japanese invasion.

But, so far they’d been relatively lucky.

Born in poverty in Tennessee, known to his friends as “Chick,” Parsons had spent his childhood going back and forth between the U.S. and Manila. He lived there wi…