"I'd also like to express our profound respect for the 2,218 Retired Reserve soldiers who, since 9/11, have volunteered to come back to active duty."

U.S. Army Col. Wanda Good, Commander of the St. Louis, Mo. branch of the U.S. Army Human Resources Command said on the DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable. "Three-hundred and eighty-four of them served in Iraq, and 122 of them have served in Afghanistan."

Col. Good discussed the process for mobilizing Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) soldiers and the return of volunteers from the Retired Reserve program. “Most soldiers will serve three or more years on active duty and then transfer to reserves,” Good said. “Every IRR soldier knows he has not been discharged from the military. He knows he’s been released from the active component. He also knows that he’s still in the reserves and that he could be mobilized out of this reserve.”

On the call with us was Jonas Hogg of The Ball Gunner.

"Soldiers serving in the IRR are by no means 'inactive.'" Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne

Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne, Commander, U.S. Army Human Resources Command, joined us today for our third DoD Bloggers Roundtable to discuss the U.S. Army's Individual Ready Reserve program and its purpose, functions and procedures.

Recent headlines have indicated some soldiers in the IRR do not fully understand the process by which to request a delay or exemption from service, should they consider themselves non-deployable. Maj. Gen. Byrne explains there is a formal process for those soldiers who feel a need to submit such a request and also speaks to other considerations for IRR soldiers to Bruce McQuain of QandO and Andrew Lubin of the Military Observer.