Vietnam Graffiti Project (X sucks, etc.)

[Wilson Gray]

In my days of being "nervous in the sevice," (a common graffito of the
day), the Army and other things military "sucked," period. However,
There were other sayings with approximately the same meaning in which
a surface object did appear. The first that I remember hearing was

[NP] takes gas.

As far as I was able to discern, this string had no meaning. It was
just something that was said when something sucked. It was sometimes
eggcorned to

... takes ass

which likewise had no meaning. The more popular version of "... takes [NP]" was

... takes the meat

This did have a meaning: " ... allows ...self to be fucked in the ass."

"The meat" eventually came to be used alone, with the meaning,
"everything about life in the military that sucks" and was used in a
name game: Across The River And Into The Meat; The Old Man and the
Meat; A Long Day's Journey Into The Meat; A Summer Night's Meat, etc.

-Wilson Gray