We get a lot of calls from reservists who are having issues with drilling and feel they would be better off in the IRR. They want to know how to request transfer. What form do they fill out? Where do they send it? That's where things start getting tricky. The first thing people in this situation might want to know is that no matter how someone applies, requests to go to the IRR early are almost never approved. The military prefers reservists who are actively training and ready (drilling reserves) over people who are just unsupervised names on a list (IRR).

You may be thinking "the IRR would better for me" for this or that reason. And yours may be a good reason. But what we have seen is that the military doesn't seem to care about your reasons, at least not enough to approve your transfer. This is why we routinely get calls from people like you saying "I asked to go to the IRR and they said it was dissaproved." Asking directly almost never works. You can try, but usually if you do submit a request, your command will tell you that to have the request approved, you need to be in "good standing" and so if you want to be considered, you will have to keep drilling for for the time being, despite the issues that were making it hard or impossible to attend drill. So in hopes of being approved you figure a way to keep drilling for 5 or 6 (sometimes more) months and then afterwards you get word that your request was denied. Months of hardship only to be right back where you started.

Does this mean there is no way to get to the IRR? No, it just means that the path of getting to the IRR ahead of schedule probably has to be indirect. In general early transfer to the IRR consists of having some reason which leads the military to believe it is in their best interest to put you there. One example might be someone who has moved outside of commuting distance and now lives in a place where there are no units they can join. Another resolution might be someone getting out altogether for something like parenthood, dependency, or a medical limitation. Probably the best way to explore options like this is to contact a GI Rights Counselor and discuss the details of your situation. Free and confidential 877-447-4487.