AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Veterans Day is this Wednesday, but folks already started the celebration as the 17th annual Veterans Day parade had a crowd lined up and down Polk Street Saturday in Amarillo.

Nearly 80 different patriotic floats were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd waving flags. Several floats carried veterans from the various wars of the past century plus even some from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's just a great way to honor the veterans, you see a lot of the old guys riding in the parade on the floats and stuff, they're not going to be around much longer, even guys like Vietnam vets, they're dying off pretty rapidly, WWII vets are dying at the rate of two thousand a day so this is one of the few opportunities to show them the respect they deserve," said Glenn Larson, Veteran.

Mayor McCartt was among the parade float judges.