Army general who served as the 36th Army Chief of Staff and the 31st Director of the National Intelligence Service
| Life | 1944 |
| Era | 현대 |
| Clan | 영양 남씨 |
Nam Jae-joon (南在俊, born 1944) is a soldier from Seoul of the Yeongyang Nam clan. He was commissioned from the 25th class of the Korea Military Academy in 1969 and fought in the Vietnam War in 1972-73. He served as a regimental commander of the 7th Infantry Division, operations chief of the First Army, chief of staff of the Capital Defense Command, commander of the 6th Infantry Division and army personnel chief.
He was the 21st commander of the Capital Defense Command (1998-2000), director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2000-02) and the 15th deputy commander of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (2002-03). He served as the 36th Army Chief of Staff from 2003 to 2005 and retired as a four-star general.
After retirement he lectured at Chungnam National, Wonkwang and Seokyeong universities and served as defense and security adviser to the Grand National Party's 2007 primary and the 2012 Park Geun-hye campaign. He was the 31st Director of the National Intelligence Service in 2013-14 and ran as the United Korea Party candidate in the 2017 presidential election before withdrawing. Assessments of his time as intelligence chief are divided, so only his career is summarized here. See the Yeongyang Nam clan page for the clan overview.
Commissioned from the Military Academy's 25th class, he fought in Vietnam and rose through division commander, Capital Defense Commander, JCS operations director and CFC deputy commander to Army Chief of Staff.
After university lecturing and party-campaign advisory roles he led the National Intelligence Service in 2013-14 and withdrew from the 2017 presidential race.