So my final project for my US History course last semester was to write an "imaginary primary source" by making a travel journal with at least five entries in it. For my travel journal I picked the American army's winter at Valley Forge during the American Revolution, and use the Digidestined as the characters (after I Americanized their names of course).
Now that the class is over, I figured I may as well change the names back and share with other Digimon fans. If anyone feels out of character, remember that these are just Tai's first impressions of them, they'll get better in later chapters. So, here's the first journal entry! Enjoy! (Hopefully)
From the Journal of Tai Kamiya, Sergeant of the Continental Army
December 19, 1777
This journal belongs to Sergeant Tai Kamiya, of the Continental Army, serving under General Washington. I received a package from home two nights ago, and inside of it was this journal, sent by my sister. I've never had a journal before so I'm not sure what to put in here, but if Kari thinks I should use it then I suppose I may as well give it a shot.
We entered Valley Forge this morning, and the General ordered us to make camp. It's freezing here, and all we have are the tents we've been using the whole time. They are not very warm. I've heard talk of plans being set in motion to build cabins; it is my hope that something will come of that soon.
This afternoon, I got saddled with showing the ropes to a couple of new recruits. There were three in total. Two were brothers, the older named Matt Ishida, who's about my age, and the younger, T.K. Ishida. With them was a scrawny looking kid named Izzy Izumi. The Ishida Brothers look like they could handle themselves in a fair fight, but in my opinion, Izzy looks more suited to book learning, than he does to fighting.
As we talked that night around the campfire, the topic eventually turned to why they joined the fight. Izzy wasn't much for sharing yet… I guess it's going to take him a little while to open up to us. Matt was pretty much the same, but the younger Ishida brother was more talkative. While he seemed happy enough to share though, he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully so as not to share too much.
According to T.K. – the younger brother insists upon going by his first and middle initials, so who am I to argue – they come from a successful merchant family near Boston, and their father supported the British cause. Despite their family's success, Matt had wanted to sign up the moment he heard about the war, but their father refused to allow it. When T.K. turned fifteen last month, and got it in his head to join the cause as well, he and Matt packed up their things that day, and left in the dead of night. I have no proof, but personally I feel like there's more to the story, Matt doesn't seem like the type to let his father's refusal prevent him from doing as he wished, and T.K. idolizes Matt more like a father than as a brother. Coupled with T.K.'s guarded way of telling the story, and the faded bruises Matt tries to hide, I gather their father was not a very nice man.
Well, that's all I have for now.