Memorial Marathon

Arizona Woman Runs In Memory Of A Marine She Never Knew

(CBS)  Two mothers, living in two very different worlds, are using each other to help remember the war in Iraq.

CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi has the story of a Phoenix, Ariz. woman who's running the Marine Corps Marathon in memory of a soldier she never knew.

It's 7:00 a.m. in Phoenix and Jane Dolan is racing to get the kids off — and start her own journey.

Alfonsi tried to keep up with her in the foothills of Phoenix.

Jane is training to run the Marine Corps Marathon in memory of Michael Downey, a 21-year-old Marine killed in Iraq.

But here's the twist: she has never met him.

"But the reality is I'll never know all the soldiers," Jane says.

As a mom, she wants to keep the stories of the nearly 2,000 sons and daughters killed in Iraq alive.

"It's easy for it to become a number without a face, without a life, without a family," says Lauren Eiler, Michael's mother.

Lauren says Michael had the same smile as a baby as when he graduated from boot camp. But her son — once a bit of a slob — had transformed into the perfect soldier.

"He was very meticulous about his uniform which just amazed me," she says.

Today, she takes that same meticulous care of her son's grave — cleaning it, making it just right, even if everything else isn't.

"It's a very strange experience because you get up and you do the same things you did before he died, but everything is different," Lauren says.

She admits she doesn't know where to start. His uniforms and boots were boxed up and sent home to her.

"I just can't do anything else with them right now. It's really hard," she says.

So Jane is running so people don't forget Michael. If that seems like a small thing, it isn't — not to his mom.

"I am so appreciative of her doing that," Lauren says. "I want him to be remembered."

Jane will run the Marine Corps Marathon on Oct. 30 — it would have been Michael's 22nd birthday. Lauren says she'll be there at the finish line.