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You are actually correct in part of your statement, but here is the real impact.

Military pay is exempt as you said. For now. Obama ordered that in July because he didn't want to deal with the political fallout in an election year with criticism that he "cut the troops pay." Now, he is going to cut troops - big time. He could care less about them.

The Army alone is going to gut their personnel strength:

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said sequestration would force large end strength cuts, the extent of which are not yet known. For fiscal year 2014 and beyond, it will result in “the loss of at least an additional 100,000 personnel, soldiers, from the active Army, the Army National guard and the U.S. Army reserve,” he said. “Combined with previous cuts, this will result in a total reduction of at least 189,000 personnel from the force -- but probably even more than that.”

So, 26% of the DoD budget is off limits. The 19% that procurement takes looks like a player, but it isn't. We are halfway through the fiscal year. Many of those contracts are already signed. We get into legal territory now. Some of them could possibly be broken through a pause in orders, modifications, or partial terminations. But in the end, the lawyers always win. The DoD may end up owing more, so they are holding off with doing that....for now.

That leaves a very, very small piece of the pie to "pay" for this massive, massive cut (again, halfway through the fiscal year).

They can furlough civilians (funded by O&M funds), but that only buys the DoD $5 Billion between March and September, they need another $41 Billion, just until the end of the fiscal year!

In October, this all starts all over again.....for another 9 years!

And that is why the hollowing out of the force is going to be so drastic, so rapid, and so deep.

What really has to happen is Entitlement reform. Entitlements are out of control.

It’s funny that here you note correctly that the real problem is that they didn’t plan ahead, so too much of the budget is now off-limits. But in another thread you posted, you attacked a congressman who said exactly the same thing — that the problem is that the DoD didn’t plan for sequestration, because they believed Obama.

The GOP was clear — there would be no sequestration, IF Romney won the presidency. He didn’t. And we aren’t going to increase taxes.

I don’t know about you, but seeing liberty drop like a fly in the self made imperial capital of Washington.

I don’t value the Federal military, for it is at the end of the day nothing more than Washington’s brutal enforcer.

I know most of the officers & personnel of the army are good men & women who believe in liberty. But i also know that they all will be forced to answer Washington’s call to impose tyranny upon their own people one way or the other.

So I do not support funding this organizational, Let the patriots of the army, & air-force join their state’s national guards. Let them answer more to the honest convictions of their own hearts rather than the corrupt edicts of a lawless Washington.

“So, 26% of the DoD budget is off limits. The 19% that procurement takes looks like a player, but it isn’t.”

The law requires procurement accounts to take the same percentage cut as the O&S accounts. The reason the procurement accounts are not as impacted is procurement funds are three year money O&S is one year money. This means the procurement accounts can take the cuts out of 11, 12, or 13 funds. O&S has to take it out of 13 funds.

“Many of those contracts are already signed. We get into legal territory now. Some of them could possibly be broken through a pause in orders, modifications, or partial terminations. But in the end, the lawyers always win. The DoD may end up owing more, so they are holding off with doing that....for now.”

Not really. DoD is under a Continuing Resolution Authority funded at 50% of 2012. The procurement accounts have only received 50% of their funds so many of these contracts have not been ‘signed’. That doesn’t help the O&S accounts because you can’t use procurement funds for operations and maintenance. The procurement accounts can also defer further contracts to preserve funds to pay for their personnel, etc.

“They can furlough civilians (funded by O&M funds), but that only buys the DoD $5 Billion between March and September, they need another $41 Billion, just until the end of the fiscal year!”

Not all civilians are paid by O&M funding. Depends on where they work. They are paid for by the type of funds their parent agencies receive. Furloughing civilians paid for by other than O&M funds does not help the O&S problems.

“That leaves a very, very small piece of the pie to “pay” for this massive, massive cut (again, halfway through the fiscal year).”

Make up your mind. Did DoD fail to plan for this? DoD kept the funding pedal all the way to the floor even though the law said their could be a sequestration. Not the fault of the service chiefs but the political appointees. Had these appointees allowed the services to plan for this, then the impacts would have been spread over 12 not 6 months.