Trying to save troops' lives with flying hospital

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) — A light rain fell on a runway in the early morning darkness as vans pulled up to what one officer calls the "Cadillac" of medical evacuation aircraft.

Dozens of service members began loading wounded comrades onto a huge C-17 military transport plane in a carefully choreographed process. As many as eight people carry a single patient, who often is connected to more than 100 pounds of advanced medical equipment.

The giant plane had been converted into a flying intensive care unit to evacuate the war zones' most seriously wounded for advanced care in Germany and the U.S. The wounded travel under the watchful eye of Air National Guard Critical …