Slang "(be) ate up" (= be a bit of a dingbat)?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:23:18 -0700, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> "Ate up" is also a disparaging military term roughly synonymous with
>"gung ho" in the negative sense: overly enthusiastic; brainwashed by
>military propaganda."
>
>What appears to be the earliest discovered example is from Usenet,
>rec.puzzles, "Lisence [sic] Tag," on Jan. 23, 1995:
>
>"Real life puzzle: What does this license tag mean   RU8UPTO"
>
>The poster appears to have a Navy-related address. "Ate up" also appears
>in Carson Stroud's account of the Gulf War, _Iron Bravo_ (1997).

There are earlier cites on alt.military.cadet:

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.military.cadet/msg/6ddf8a0c1b8c6dd4
alt.military.cadet, "AROTC Advanced Camp", Feb 19 1993
If you have an ate-up OPORD, chances are they will kill you off (you
implying you are squad leader) and let you watch the charley-foxtrot a bad
plan creates, or, if you have an awesome plan, you might get killed off
anyways, and your APL will get to take over, and he will get evaluated on
how much he listened to your plan.
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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.military.cadet/msg/0ca01c0be40394bf
alt.military.cadet, "Interservice Future", Mar 19 1993
Not all ROTC units stress PT like the devil.  Sometimes, it doesn't happen
as I see schools with streams of ate up cadets who can't get a measly 60
points on the run.
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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.military.cadet/msg/f1c3986a6ff1efab
alt.military.cadet, "USAF vs Civilian", Feb 14 1994, 12:56 am
98% of the folks in my class were gung-ho, ate-up a**holes.
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And from 1992, an example of "ate up with the dumb ass" (mentioned on
Walter Rader's site):

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.humor/msg/c9d4f53b462e944d
rec.humor, "Funny Similies", Jul 3 1992
My neighbor Bill (from Texas, natch) says, when he thinks
his wife Maggie is doing something dumb or silly:
"she's all ate up with the dumb ass"
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--Ben Zimmer