The military has always been pretty adamant about you keeping a copy of your own records for this very reason. In truth there wasn't much lost that wasn't in the possession of the individuals here. Most of what was lost was WW1 and WW2 archives. At the time a lot were already in the care of the VA and had copies of their records. This fire really just made certain research harder. Like trying to find out what and where Grandpa was in WW2.
I went down this road before the internet looking for some WW1 stuff many years ago. The information is out there it is just a lot harder to find than it would be it this archive had survived.
From my understanding most of the damage to the actual files was water damage from fighting the fire.
Those are getting hard to come by these days. I've been driving one since about 2000 and used to have a plethora to choose from at Pick and Pull for parts. Now there is not one in the yard. Plenty of Grand Cherokees but no Cherokees
Is he shooting using his left eye?