Custom Tag lib life-cycle question.

So, I've created a tag which takes an optional attribute. It seems to
be retaining the value of the attribute between invocations of the tag.

--- CUT -- MyTag.java -- CUT ---
import javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.TagSupport;
import javax.servlet.jsp.JspException;

public class MyTag extends TagSupport {
   private Object myArgument;
   private static int counter = 0;
   public int doStartTag() throws JspException {
       if (myArgument == null) {
           myArgument = new Integer(++counter);
       }
      try {
         pageContext.getOut().print(myArgument);
      } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new JspException(e);
      }
      return SKIP_BODY;
   }
   public int doEndTag() throws JspException {
      return EVAL_PAGE;
   }

    public Object getMyArgument() {
        return myArgument;
    }

    public void setMyArgument(Object myArgument) {
        this.myArgument = myArgument;
    }
}
--- END -- MyTag.java -- END ---

In my JSP I have:
<mytags:myTag />
<mytags:myTag />
<mytags:myTag myArgument="help" />

I would expect the output to be
1
2
help
but the output is
1
1
help

My question is, where is the appropriate location to reset the
myArgument reference? at doEndTag? release? somewhere else?

Or, am I going about this the wrong way altogether? Keeping in mind
this is a simplified version of my actual usecase.

Thanks,
Daniel.

(x-posted to comp.lang.java.(programmer/help/gui), follow-up to
programmer)