As Easter approaches, the resurrection message is even more special this year for Sharon Westbrook.

"I know I will see him again," she said. "The wait will just be a little longer."

The him she is talking about is her son, Pfc. Jason Poindexter, a Camp Pendleton Marine who was killed in Iraq on Sept. 12, 2004. He had been a Marine for only nine months, and in Iraq for only seven days, when he died.

"His destiny was chosen at birth. I miss him but I don't have any tears of regret," says Westbrook, who lives in San Angelo, Texas. "He was a goofy kid that loved life, and his death has brought me a faith in mankind I never had before."

In Southern California, Mercedes Butts of Granada Hills approaches the March 27 Christian holiday with a strange peace. She plans to spend some time on Easter Sunday at the National Cemetery in Los Angeles.

There, her two sons, 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Alan, and his 13-year-old brother, Mark Alan, are buried side by side despite the cemetery's initial refusal to do so. A crusade by the Marine Corps and scores of Marine Moms stifled protocol so the siblings could keep the promise they made to each other to be Semper Fidelis – always faithful.

"I have no doubt in my mind the two of them are together," she said. "And I have no doubt Matthew went first so he could welcome his little brother home."