Air Force elite surgical team's "outside-the-wire medicine" In our series, Profiles in Service, we highlight people who dedicate their lives to helping others, often at great risk to themselves. An estimated 26,000 American troops are deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. If they're wounded in action, their survival rate is now about 90 percent – the highest it's ever been in combat. At Hurlburt Field, outside Pensacola, Florida, Tony Dokoupil met an elite Air Force surgical team partly responsible for that remarkable record.