Something I learned late in my life is that when problems arise I need to consider my own role. Something along the line of there are victims and there are volunteers.
Not bothering to hold onto the receipt for the bike makes the OP very much partly to blame and as with most people it is more comfortable to place all the blame on others. With every war there are kids who return from service and protesting that no one told them what it would be like and that they had been lied to by others. No one seems to learn that all war is evil and there are no real winners other than the war profiteers who make sure their children stay out of the military.