With November comes dropping temperatures, but the month also brings a national celebration of men and women who have risked their lives in any of the dozens of American military campaigns.

A Saturday parade starts events planned in Vicksburg next week, leading up to Veterans Day on Friday.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion are teaming up for the parade down Washington Street, where dozens of vets from Vietnam, Korea and World War II will be accompanied by some of their new, much younger brethren from the 168th National Guard, who recently returned from in Iraq.

&#8220It’s open to all veterans,” said Vietnam veteran Lloyd Boggan, quartermaster of VFW Post 2572 at Washington St. &#8220The majority of the 168th just came back from over there last year; so they’re all veterans.”

The 168th will march the route from Belmont Street north to Jackson Street downtown at 10 a.m., but the parade will feature a couple dozen older veterans, Boggan said, most of whom will ride in a trailer decorated with signs and pulled by a pickup.

&#8220I’m a youngster up here compared with the majority of these guys,” Boggan said. &#8220Most of them are too old to march in the street.”

&#8220I enjoy it. I’m looking forward to it,” said Franklin County native Evertt Ezell, who landed in Normandy two and a half weeks after D-Day in World War II and has spent the last 59 Veterans’ Days in Vicksburg. &#8220This year I’m going to ride in a carriage with the American Legion.”

In addition to the parade, a March of Dimes walk-a-thon, is Saturday morning. Registration is in the BancorpSouth parking lot, 820 South St., at 9 a.m., followed by the parade and then music, food and door prizes back on South Street, said planner Wanda Carothers.

The minimum donation to enter the walk is $25. This year’s goal is $16,000. The money will help a local woman, Sally Harrison, who recently gave birth to premature twins.

&#8220Usually we don’t ask people to donate per mile, we just ask them to donate,” said Carothers.

On Veterans Day, the VFW will again collaborate with the American Legion for the annual ceremony at 11 a.m. at the Rose Garden at the World War I memorial at Crawford and Monroe streets.

Veterans Day began as &#8220Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1918, to commemorate the end of World War I. It became Veterans’ Day in 1954, and, except for a brief period when it was celebrated on the first Monday of October, has been observed on Nov. 11 every year since 1978.

There are 24.5 million veterans of foreign wars in the United States, according to the U.S. Census, about 9.5 million of whom are over 65.

About 2.6 million veterans receive $22.4 billion in aid each year for service-related disabilities, and the federal government spent $59.6 billion in 2004 on veterans benefit programs.