Fire damages restaurant in Fort Wayne\nFORT WAYNE -- Fire swept through a century-old downtown building on Monday, heavily damaging a longtime restaurant.\nFirefighters were called to Henry's Restaurant about 9:30 a.m. and found flames and smoke coming from the windows of a second-floor apartment in the two-story brick structure. No injuries were reported, and three people who were inside the restaurant at the time escaped unharmed.\nRestaurant manager Chris Vasquez said he smelled the smoke before he saw any flames and that it appeared the fire started over the restaurant and bar.\nThe restaurant has been owned by John Freistroffer for 27 years, and his family has owned the building for nearly 50 years.\nFreistroffer and Vasquez were visibly distraught as they watched the flames and thick smoke pour from the building.\n"It's hard to watch this," said Vasquez, who's worked at Henry's for nearly three decades. "You've got so much in it, and it's gone so quick."\nIt took firefighters about 30 minutes to bring the blaze under control. Investigators did not immediately know the fire's cause.
Indiana Guard adding recruiters to stem troop losses\nINDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Army National Guard is stepping up its recruiting efforts in hopes of meeting recruiting and retention targets it missed this year.\nThe Guard has launched a plan that puts the responsibility for attracting new soldiers on entire units, not just recruiters.\n"We got more people involved in recruiting by basically making the commanders responsible for their gains and their losses," Lt. Col. Ivan Denton told The Indianapolis Star for a story Monday.\nDenton, the Indiana Guard's recruiting and retention commander, led a battalion of the 293rd Infantry Regiment when it deployed to Iraq last year, the kind of mission that has discouraged some from enlisting.\nThe Indiana National Guard is also adding recruiters to combat the slipping numbers, with help from the National Guard bureau in Washington, which is paying for 500 new recruiters nationwide, 30 of which will be in Indiana.\nThe sense of urgency has increased after the Indiana Guard, the fifth largest in the nation, missed its goals for new recruits and total soldiers this year. The Guard fell 400 short of its recruiting goal for the year that ended Sept. 30 and also was short of the 11,300 soldiers it wants in the force.\nIndiana now has 10,871 Guard soldiers, more than 200 fewer than it did last year and some 700 short of the total three years ago.\nIn the past year, the Indiana Guard has lost more than 2,100 soldiers to retirement and other reasons -- a 19 percent "loss rate."\n"Right now, if you're asking me for my concern," Denton said, "I'm keeping my eye on our loss rate."\nIndiana is not the only state struggling to keep up. Across the country, states missed their combined goal of 56,000 recruits by about 5,000.\nDenton said he hoped the larger recruiting force will help the Guard reach schools, community events and other areas with potential recruits that have been missed in recent years.\nMichael Hawes, a member of the Junior ROTC program at Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis, said the prospect of receiving up to $40,000 for college and the possibility of going overseas appeal to him.\n"I would like to be able to defend my country and give the same thing back that (America) gave to me," the 16-year-old sophomore said.\nThe Guard is trying to increase its troops' numbers while still recovering from problems that surfaced in 2002, when an investigation found forged physicals had been used to enlist more than 100 people.\nBut the Guard's new aggressive approach seems to be working.\nAfter averaging 150 recruits each month from October 2003 through July, recruiters signed up 192 new soldiers in August and 217 in September. Denton said that was "the best two months we've had in the last 3-1/2 years"
