Courtesy Photo | (Photo courtesy Dave Iuli) Soldiers are having fun learning how to mix songs on the...... read more read more
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FALLS CHURCH, Va.- Beyond the physical and mental recovery at a Soldier Recovery Unit is the Career, Education, and Readiness tool. SRUs can get creative in what they offer, and Joint Base Lewis McChord’s SRU is no exception. “I was super shocked. I was walking by the courtyard one day and thought, what the heck? There’s a dude DJing, and he had all his stuff up, and he told me it was a class, and I said I'm doing that! I was beyond shocked. That's not something I expected from the Army,” said retired Army Spc. Gerald Blakley.
That “dude” is recreational specialist Dave Iuli, a former JBLM SRU Soldier. “I was a DJ back in high school. I've always loved music but got away from it until I returned to SRU as an employee, and I just found the passion to play music for others. To me, the music and the business of DJing is just a problem-solving technique and career opportunity that helped my PTSD,” said the former Cannon crew member who suffered a TBI and stroke that landed him into the JBLM SRU in 2012.
Iuli has been excited about Soldiers' participation in this class over the years and relates the process they learn in DJ class to what they are dealing with in everyday life. “DJing is just a bunch of systems and learning how they work. Most Soldiers are learning a new process in their new normal. Learning that music process that you have to go through, all the music, everything together sounding good, how you make that sound, it's a process, and then when you do that process, nothing else matters; you concentrate on it. I’ve learned Soldiers in recovery sometimes also need to focus on something other than what they're going through, so it’s great when they have something they like to focus on,” said Iuli
Like Iuli, Blakley was a DJ gigging on the side before entering the military. The opportunity to get an education on the latest and greatest in technology and spinning the tunes was appreciated. “For me, it was learning about all the updates in the program and all the new buttons. Of course, every board and every DJ is completely different. Things have changed technologically over the years, so I really had to follow Dave’s directions on how to learn the new systems,” said Blakley.
Make no mistake. It looks fun, but it can be very intense, and to others in the class, it’s an art form worth pursuing. “It’s been a dream of mine to learn how to DJ. It’s hard to catch on, to, but I think I’ll get better with some practice. It’s amazing what I learned to do in only an hour of lessons,” said Spc. Jamal Morris.
Iuli shared that one of the Soldiers he taught now DJs full-time in the Las Vegas area. “He is doing so well today! When he left the Army, he just took off. I’m so proud of him.”
As Blakley points out, not everyone does it full-time. He became a nurse after retiring from the Army and is working toward becoming a nurse practitioner. He knows he can always side gig again with the skills he is proud to have developed. “Everybody always says DJing is just pushing a button. It's not pushing a button. It is so much more difficult, and at JBLM, they are helping Soldiers develop skills to have a cool side gig or a career; it’s awesome.”
| Date Taken: | 02.14.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.19.2025 08:50 |
| Story ID: | 490812 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 20 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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