A "Reach Back" Military

An interesting report from StrategyPage deals with the gorwing capacity of today's military to keep many support soldiers back in the US at the end of a modem. It saves a lot of money but it's not without some costs:

Marines are particularly unhappy with this "reach back" stuff. Marines are eager about getting into the fight. Moreover, marines or soldiers so separated from their units, begin to feel they aren't exactly part of the unit. The trend is to make these "reach back" detachments part of larger "support" entities, and skip any pretending that some members of the units stayed behind. This causes some awkward situations because, in the past, when troops had problems with some administrative matter, they could see a person in their unit who could take care of it. Now it's some stranger on the other end of the phone or Internet connection. And before long, some of these functions will be outsourced to civilian firms. Then the perplexed will be dealing with someone in India, just like the rest of us. Well, I suppose it will all work out.