Photo Provided Mike Wear, center, a 2013 graduate of Martins Ferry High School, says goodbye to parents John and Tiffany McFarland as he begins his service with the Air National Guard in March. Wear was present at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, when it was attacked on Aug. 26, but he completed his duty there and is now safely in Kuwait.

MARTINS FERRY — Many Americans experienced tense moments as they watched civilians and soldiers being airlifted from Afghanistan, but for one local family whose son was behind the scenes in Kabul, the wait for news that he was safe was grueling.

“Mike is back in Kuwait!” Martins Ferry Police Chief John McFarland posted on social media Monday after receiving word that his stepson, Mike Wear, had completed his mission in Afghanistan and had left the country. “Thank you for all of the prayers, each one of them helped!”

Wear — a 26-year-old Martins Ferry High School graduate, Class of 2013 — had been on active duty with the Air National Guard since March. Chief McFarland said the family dropped him off at Lahm Air National Guard Base in Mansfield, Ohio, on March 12.

McFarland said plans called for him to serve in the field of logistics in Kuwait, but the family soon learned that after quarantining in Georgia, he would be going to Afghanistan as well.

Wear became a part of the 387th Air Expeditionary Squadron Quick Reaction Team. McFarland said his duties involved moving cargo, loading and unloading planes in particular. During his time in Afghanistan, Wear served at an airfield in Kandahar, at Bagram Airfield and at Camp Dwyer before being shipped out to Kuwait.

Then, at 7:21 a.m. Aug. 16, McFarland and Wear’s mother, Tiffany McFarland, received word that he would return to Afghanistan in about an hour. This time, he would serve at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, although details about where individual servicemen and women were stationed and what they were doing were closely guarded at this point, leaving the McFarlands and other families here at home to wait and wonder.

“It was tough,” Chief McFarland said. “I hated it.”

McFarland said Wear joined the military to help pay for college. He had been interested in a number of fields such as engineering and aeronautics and had switched majors a few times. Then he decided that by serving, he likely could cut down his college costs. McFarland said the family supported his decision.

“Mike is one of the smartest human beings I’ve ever met in my life … ,” McFarland said, noting that they have been in each other’s lives since Mike was just 4 years old. “We felt that being in logistics, he could probably stay out of harm’s way.”

It seems, though, that every member of the military puts their life on the line when they don the uniform. McFarland said at one point Wear and his unit were under attack in Bagram. The Taliban were firing rockets at their location, and they had to enter a bunker for protection. Soon, though, American helicopters showed up with reinforcements and the firing ceased.

The danger grew while Wear was at the airport in Kabul, where he was tasked with loading planes as American forces withdrew from the country. A suicide bomber attacked crowds trying to enter the airport on Aug. 26, with gunfire erupting after the first blast and a second blast following. In all, 13 U.S. service members were killed along with more than 90 Afghans.

“He was there during the airport attaches,” McFarland said of Wear. “His main purpose was loading flights with refugees. What was sad was there were a bunch of kids who were alone.”

The chief said Wear told him that the Afghan children he encountered spoke little or no English, so they couldn’t communicate with the American military about where their parents or other family members were.

Finally, on Sunday, Aug. 29, the family received word that Wear was headed out of Afghanistan and back to Kuwait.

“It was 2:46 a.m., and we were OK with that,” McFarland said of Wear’s departure time. “At 11:31 a.m. (Monday), we got word he was back in Kuwait. He had just landed.”

Wear is also the son of Brian Wear of Cambridge and the grandson of Joe and Sue Ontko, McFarland noted. He has two brothers: Richard McFarland, a student at West Virginia Northern Community College, and John McFarland, a junior at MFHS.

Wear is currently scheduled to return home on Oct. 1.