He sent, she sent

Military | Boys will be boys-and girls, girls-even in supporting U.S. troops | Lynn Vincent

Snaps and snails and puppy dog tails. Sugar and spice and all that's nice. The differences between boys and girls are older than Mother Goose's 1916 nursery rhyme—and as new as the ways they respond to current events.

In Orange County, Calif., 17-year-old Shauna Fleming's national campaign to send thank-you notes to American soldiers has warmed more than 2.5 million warriors' hearts. In La Plata, Md., 14-year-old Zeke Peterson has taken a practical—and arguably more male—approach, sending soldiers something they can use in the field.

That "something" might not seem useful at first. Even Zeke was skeptical when in December his mom, Lisa, first showed him a news clip about Marcelle Shriver, a New Jersey woman who launched a drive to send planeloads of Silly String to Iraq. Shriver's Marine Corps son Todd wrote home to say that soldiers and marines used the pastel-colored party favor to detect explosive-rigged trip wires during house-clearing operations: If the string floated to the ground, the coast was clear. If it hung in midair—trouble.