MRS. DOLE GREETS VETERANS, ATTENDS GOP RALLY IN CAPE

C.W. Knuckles was a "yellow Dog Democrat." But that was before he met Bob Dole while the two recuperated from war wounds in an Army hospital in Battle Creek, Mich.

Since 1976, the Poplar Bluff city councilman has voted Republican, although he describes himself as an independent. Knuckles backs Dole for president as he has in Dole's previous presidential bids.

Knuckles and his wife, Eloise, traveled from Poplar Bluff to visit briefly with Elizabeth Dole during her campaign stop at the Missouri Veterans' Home in Cape Girardeau Wednesday afternoon.

Dole was in Cape Girardeau to campaign for her husband and presidential hopeful Bob Dole.

She stopped at the Veterans' Home before attending a late-afternoon GOP rally at the Holiday Inn. A standing-room-only crowd of about 300 party faithful attended.

At 78, the white-haired, soft-spoken Knuckles still vividly remembers his first encounter with Bob Dole.

Knuckles was in Gen. Patton's Third Army in World War II. He suffered a concussion when a bomb exploded and about a month later, in September 1944, he was shot and wounded in the spine as the Army pushed through France.

Knuckles ended up in the Army hospital in Michigan after the war. He was talking to a friend and fellow officer who also had been wounded.

"I guess I must have said something nasty about the Republicans," he said. Dole overheard the comment and proceeded to criticize Knuckles. "He ripped me," Knuckles recalled.

They ended up sharing both friendship and politics.

"I got to know him well enough that I know he is a good, honest person," said Knuckles, who underwent numerous operations and was in and out of hospitals for more than two decades.

He moved back to the Southeast Missouri area in 1967. He subsequently worked for the Poplar Bluff School District, retiring as its business manager in 1986.

Elizabeth Dole chatted briefly with residents of the Veterans' Home as she walked through a part of the facility Wednesday. She was trailed by veterans' officials, security personnel, campaign staff and the news media.

"Obviously veterans are very important to my husband," she told reporters.

She said her husband had serious war injuries. Among other things, he had a high fever. "They didn't think he would live long," she said.

If her husband is elected president, Dole said she would continue to head up the American Red Cross.

Dole said she would encourage Americans to donate more money to charities. "On average, Americans give less than 2 percent of their income to charities."

At the GOP rally, Dole touted tax cuts, welfare reform and a tough stand on crime as she walked through the crowd.

"Taxes are going only one way with Bob Dole, and that's down," she said.

She said her husband wants to scrap the current tax code in favor of a "fairer, flatter and simpler" tax system.

Congress passed $245 billion in tax cuts in 1995, but President Clinton vetoed them, Elizabeth Dole said.

She said her husband, the former majority leader of the Senate, fought Clinton's efforts to make major cuts in the defense budget.

Dole said her husband trained with broomsticks in the Army because of inadequate defense spending.

She said her husband believes Hollywood and the entertainment industry have cut away at America's traditional values. Television shows have offered up "night after night of casual violence and even more casual sex," she said.

She said Bob Dole doesn't want to censor Hollywood, but encourage those in the industry to be responsible citizens.

She said her husband wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and encourage school-choice programs to make education competitive.

State Reps. Mary Kasten of Cape Girardeau, David Schwab of Jackson and Patrick Naeger of Perryville, state Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau and lieutenant-governor candidate Bill Kenney attended the rally. Kasten, Kinder and Kenney spoke at the rally.