Just a Quarter... in NoJoMo OD style lol

My boyfriend and i were walking down the street today when it started to rain. Being that we had transfers for the bus and the stop was literally across the street we decided to wait. the wait, as it turned out was only momentary as luck would have it. We were not alone in this thought apparently as there was an elderly gentleman who was also waiting.
The very first thing i noticed was that he was dressed in his dress coat, his military style hat (though excuse my ignorance on knowing which branch the hat was from) and smack dab over his heart, were 3 very old metals, obviously earned in war. he looked very handsome and proud, as he should be.
for anyone who may not know about November 11, that is remembrance day. a day we celebrate and honour all those who fought and died for our daily freedoms. the freedom for women to work without fear, the freedom to speak without fear, the freedom to live without fear to say a few. A freedom that is still continuing to be in threat from terrorists like isis as i type. a freedom this man felt strongly enough to risk his life to protect. so OBVIOUSLY tyler and i let this man go first.
well, as luck would have it, the bus driver was a woman, who was more interested in her conversation then helping our soldier. as it would happen, he was hard at hearing, slow to move and apparently quickly trying the bus drivers patience as he tried to sort out his change for his bus fare. he ever so politely began his conversation with her by asking how much the bus was and that he would require a transfer. she got grumpy with him over the fact that her machine was not printing properly as she had not had time to initialize it yet due to dealing with needy passengers. he didnt hear her correctly and began to place his change on her machine to count it out. she then began to demand that he was a quarter short for his fare and she could not let him on if he was too short. the lady she was talking to began to whisper at him that he was short to which he sheepishly admitted he was not able to hear her. she then almost yelled to him (all be it much more politely than her friend, the bus driver who continued to argue and rant about the transfer) that he was short a quarter and here take my transfer because it would get him through almost 1.5 hours to get back. (a transfer is good for 2 hours)
while this was happening the bus driver began to get more and more agitated by this obviously difficult passenger (enter sarcastic facial expression here) that she would radio to his other bus that she didn’t print off a transfer. then she said something that made me sick to my stomach. she point blank said to him “oh and its not remembrance day ya know you don’t NEED to wear your metals” i was soo stunned by her comment that i looked at Tyler who was already reaching into his pocket for a quarter, to grab it and put it with the mans change. she flicked the change into the machine then told him to sit down and as we showed her our transfers i ever so “politely” muttered to her volume “the man can wear whatever he wants”.
when did we become a society that is only ok with celebrating these huge and selfless sacrifices on only one day a year. when did it become ok for this woman to put a veteran down for his choice to be proud of what he did for his country? i get that we dont often wear our accomplishments on our sleeves readily but maybe we should. this man could have died in pursuit of my ability to posses that quarter without fear, prejudice, famine or terror. the choice he made years earlier, gave me the opportunities i have today. he may not have single handedly been the one man who stopped the war but if not for thousands and millions like him over the history of canada, i would not be free to sit here and take the bus to spend the money i earned at work.
We live in a time where threat is still very tangible. terrorists who continue to reak havoc and destruction on a daily. read or watch the news and you’ll hear all about refugees and bombs and death and terror. we live in a world where we need to see, feel, touch heroes to know were going to be safe and secure. this man, earned his metals not for just showing up to the front lines but by going above and beyond the call of duty. this man, to someone somewhere, was a hero. this bus driver tried to take that from him today for some reason that i will never ever understand and i can only hope that war never personally touches her the way it did him and his family. the family of his fallen comrades. so to her it was just a quarter, but to me and my boyfriend, it was a stand against her prejudice and ignorance and even if he never knows we did that for him, im damn proud of what he did for my family and to anyone who reads this. to me it will never be just a quarter but rather a tiny piece of the enormous gratitude i hold for all our veterans. this remembrance day, as i teach my kids to stand proud during our min of silence, listen to their little voices sing and chant out their remembrance, im going remember that i get to hear these things and feel these things because of millions of men and women like him.