Mushroom Montoya I still keep a letter that I wrote to my brother, John on his 17th birthday under my keyboard as a "memento" of my loss of innocence. I wrote to him on my first day on the gun line. On our first strike and our first of too many "targets" too high a body count. The letter starts off innocently enough, "Happy Birthday, John! Your being 17 makes me feel old. The USS Trippe killed her first VC today. Somebody's mother's child is dead and, unfortunately, I was part of that. It makes me sick just to think about it. .....I can't tell you much though `cause Mom's ears and eyes would hurt..... Take care of yourself, Mushroom."