Cars and trucks lined both sides of Old Highway 27 Wednesday evening as dozens of well-wishers turned out to welcome their hometown hero.

Jim Martin was back home from his most recent overseas tour in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. For 45 minutes the crowd stood in the heat in the roundabout in Roopville, their anticipation growing as they waited. When Martin’s car finally appeared, the crowd let out a cheer and waved their homemade posters, flags and balloons.

The car rolled to a stop in the roundabout with a very surprised airman in the back seat.

“These guys ... it’s really a statement,” he said. “I’m very thankful for that – not deserving of that. I’m very humbled by it.”

Martin, a nurse practitioner at the University of West Georgia, has been in Germany since April 1, serving on a medical evacuation team picking up wounded soldiers and transporting them to hospitals for treatment.

“When he had to fly his missions to pick up soldiers, he actually left from Germany and went to the area he was needed,” said his wife, Kim Martin. “It could have been Afghanistan, Iraq, other places. He was all over, wherever he needed to go in and pick up the wounded.”

Martin’s crew would fly wounded soldiers back to Germany or even to a hospital in the United States. While they were in the air, he treated the patients in what is essentially a flying emergency room. Although he was actually in the United States at least once dropping off patients, the only contact he has had with his family for the last four months has been by phone, e-mail or via Web cam.

Jim and Kim, both 40, have a 7-year-old daughter, Madison.

This was his second deployment. During his first in 2005, Madison was only 3 and unaware of what her father was doing. This time, as a second-grade student at Roopville Elementary, she is old enough to know more about his military work, Kim Martin said.

“She does have a real good understanding of what he’s doing, and that he’s there to help,” she said. “But it is a tough adjustment for her when Daddy’s gone.”

And tough on family and friends. Rodney East, who met Jim Martin at the airport and then came out to the roundabout for the welcoming, had worried that Martin might not come home.

Martin’s parents, Glen and Jan Martin, are thankful he’s safe.

“We’re just so relieved, if you want to know the honest truth,” Glen Martin said.

“Lots of faith, lots of prayer and just staying busy” got them through, Jan Martin said.

As lifelong residents of the area, the Martin family had many people to rely on for support while Jim was gone.

“We could not have made it without them,” Kim Martin said.

Kim Martin has had plenty of help from the grandparents and from friends in caring for Madison in Jim’s absence. Their family at Glenloch Baptist Church had a going-away party right before Martin left for duty and took the family under their wing while he was away serving his country.

“We’ve sent care packages to him,” said Gena Kingston. “We’ve all mailed letters individually and we tried to send letters to Kim to encourage her while he was away.”

The couple had been trying to conceive a child for seven years and found out on Sept. 11, 2001, that Kim Martin was pregnant. They also heard of the terrorist attacks that day. It made Martin feel a duty to help his country pick up the pieces, though he didn’t join the reserves until after their daughter was 2 years old. He also had a duty to his young family. But the desire to serve his country was a strong pull.

“I just felt that it was my part,” Jim Martin said. “When you look around your house, when you walk around your yard with your daughter, I mean those are the things we’re fighting for – the freedom to keep those things. I can’t think of a better patient to take care of.”

Still, he had mixed emotions when he was called up for his tours. On the one hand, he was happy to be able to serve, but on the other, leaving family and friends is so hard. But once he’s overseas, he’s ready to do his job and excited that he is able to do it.

“You know that you’re accomplishing something that’s bigger than you,” Jim Martin said.