James Blakeney served as with the Infantry in the Arkansas National Guard while attending Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, where upon graduation he was ordained a Southern Baptist minister. He was commissioned as a U.S. Army chaplain in 1917, shortly after graduation, serving in France during World War I. In 1921, following his war service, he graduated from the Army Chaplain’s School. He did special work in the University of Utah and Oxford University, England, where he received his D.D. in 1941. During World War II he was the senior chaplain for U.S. troops in the European Theater of Operations. In 1942 he delivered a Thanksgiving message to American troops in London’s Westminster Abbey, and was reportedly the first non-Episcopal clergyman to occupy that pulpit. He retired in 1946 as a U.S. Army colonel.