Oroville >> Army Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Strother and his longtime friend and attorney were checking out Halloween costumes at Evangeline’s Costume Mansion in Old Sacramento when their phones began going off.

It was last Saturday, and an explosive story in the Los Angeles Times had been published, revealing that thousands of California National Guard soldiers had been told to repay re-enlistment bonuses doled out years ago.

Had Strother and his old law school buddy Daniel C. Willman paid closer attention, the rest of their evening may have gone differently. They knew a story about the now-widely criticized recoupments by the military would hit sometime during the weekend. Strother was interviewed by the Times, and his federal lawsuit against the California Guard was likely to play a significant role in an article.

Instead, Willman said, the pair ignored their phones, and the two returned to Strother’s home in Oroville to cap the night off by watching “The Imitation Game,” the World War II film starring Benedict Cumberbatch as mathematician Alan Turing.

Did they like the movie? “I did, he didn’t watch the end of it,” Willman said, pointing to Strother, in a recent interview at the Army sergeant’s home.

“I went to sleep. I was tired.” Strother said, turning to Willman. “You made me walk around the train museum. And then three hours in that Halloween store.”

When they woke up Sunday morning, numerous media inquiries awaited them, and the day marked the beginning of an adrenaline-fueled week of interviews granted to countless news outlets, including the major networks.

“The president knows about this,” Strother said. “The secretary of defense knows about this. From some little guy in Oroville and an attorney they don’t want to know.”

Originally from Michigan, Strother, 51, has lived in Oroville since 1999, and he’s become a prominent figure in the California Guard revelations. In February, he filed a class-action complaint against the Guard in federal court, alleging the illegal recoupment of enlistment or retention bonuses from more than 10,000 service members. Willman is the lead attorney for plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, remains active, though there is no certainty that it will be certified. Regardless, both Strother and Willman are calling for officials to absolve soldiers of their debts, saying they relish the opportunity to support other veterans by telling their story. They also say they intend to persuade lawmakers to act in Congress.

“We’re working on contacting congressmen,” he said. “The parties are united about this. This is outrageous. This is ridiculous.”

Strother has more than two decades of military service to his name. He re-enlisted with the California Guard in 2007, receiving a $15,000 bonus. Several months later he was deployed to Iraq, where he crushed his left knee in a Humvee door as he was trying to escape mortar fire.

In 2012, the military came calling back for that bonus money, in addition to student loan incentives he received on top of that, Strother said. In August of this year, after suing the California Guard, Strother said he was notified that his debt was absolved under a finding that he acted in good faith when he received his enlistment bonus.

Strother said he wants that finding to apply to all soldiers who were given bonuses, not just him.

According to the Times, audits revealed that the California Guard paid bonuses to soldiers who may not have qualified for them.

“The bonuses were supposed to be limited to soldiers in high-demand assignments like intelligence and civil affairs or to noncommissioned officers badly needed in units due to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan,” Times journalist David Cloud reported in his piece.

Many of the bonuses that were asked to be repaid were given to soldiers around 2006-07, according to Strother’s lawsuit.

Following national outcry after Cloud’s story was published, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Wednesday suspended efforts to collect on the “improper” payments, setting up a time line to decide on all cases by July 2017.

Not good enough, Strother said.

“All Ash Carter did the other day was prolong our misery and pass the buck,” he said.

Strother and Willman believe their class-action lawsuit could be the magic bullet to resolve the matter. It asks for recoupment attempts to cease and for money already recouped to be returned.

“It’s a one-shot deal,” Willman said of Strother’s case. “I guarantee you this. If this does not become certified — if our case falls through then there’s gonna be hundreds” of filings. He added: “We’re so far ahead in the process. Anybody else wants to do what I’m doing for Bryan … it’s going to take a year, maybe even longer, to get to that point.”

Willman, 52, began his law career as a civil rights attorney in the late ’90s, working cases in the basement of a record store in Michigan, he said. He sported long hair and an affinity for Kurt Cobain.

“It was so much fun,” he said. “But this reminds me a little of it.”

Recently Willman has been filing court documents from Strother’s dining room table in Oroville and granting interviews during car trips back and forth from Sacramento. Strother said his attorney and longtime friend cares about veterans, and they both will continue to use their newfound platform to help other soldiers.

“Our motto is leave no one behind.” Strother said. “Now our leaders on the other hand have left us all behind — out in the cold — and betrayed us.”

Contact reporter Andre Byik at 896-7760.