Funeral services for fallen soldier Jerod Osborne this Friday

By J.J. Smith. Funeral services for 2008 Rockwall-Heath High School graduate Jerod Heath Osborne, will be this Friday at 2 pm at Lake Pointe Church, 701 I-30 in Rockwall. Interment will follow in Rest Haven Memorial Park.

Spc. Osborne was killed July 5 by a roadside bomb while serving as a U.S. Army combat medic in Afghanistan.

His obituary can be found on the Rest Haven funeral home website.

Yesterday at 1 pm his flag-draped casket arrived at Majors Field Municipal  Airport in Greenville and was received there by a military honor guard.

His casket and family members were then ushered to Rest Haven Funeral Home, just east of Rockwall on Highway 66, with a long motorcade of what appeared to be over 100 police and fire vehicles, motorcycles bearing American flags driven by the Patriot Guard riders, plus automobiles driven by family and friends.

An estimated 2,000 men, women and children – many holding American flags – lined Highway 66 at a number of different locations from downtown Royse City to Fate to Rest Haven Funeral Home to pay their respects to Spc. Osborne and his family.

After the casket arrived at Rest Haven, in a brief ceremony, the military honor guard serving as pallbearers took the casket out of the limousine and rolled it into the funeral home in front of the 100 or so people who had gathered there. They next ushered family members from a limousine into the funeral home.

A video of the motorcade passing through Royse City will be available later this morning on the homepage of TheRockwallNews.com.

According to Rest Haven, the family will receive friends this evening from 6-8 pm.

Jerod is survived by his parents: Sharon Grillett and husband Gary of Rockwall/Royse City and Allan G. Osborne III of Caddo Mills, TX; sister Hayley Grillett and brothers Wau-tash, Nako and Nah-tah-ni Grillett; and grandparents Charlotte Henson of Rockwall TX Marilyn Osborne of Baltimore MD and Patricia Burchwell of TX.