text: Former Marine paddles away 2 tours in Afghanistan - The San Diego Union-Tribune
  Joshua Ploetz, a former Marine who fought in Afghanistan, bottom, paddles past barges as he canoes down the Mississippi River just south of Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 23, 2014. The trip to the mouth of the river at the Gulf of Mexico would take 69 days, about 50 of them spent paddling. But Ploetz, who has been dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, said he needed every inch of the more than 2,500-mile river to paddle away the demons of the war, or at least calm them a bit. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (The Associated Press)