updated 2:29 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - The soldiers Robert Carmody fought with never knew because he wasn’t the type to talk about it. In the jungles of Vietnam, where death lurked behind the next tree, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway.

Carmody was an Olympic medalist, a member of the same U.S. boxing team that included Joe Frazier 40 years ago. To the men of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, though, he was just another sergeant on patrol.

“He wasn’t a real bragger about stuff like that,” his son, Robert Carmody Jr., said.

If he was, the men of the 199th might have heard how Carmody fought his way to a bronze medal at 112 pounds in the 1964 Games in Tokyo, losing on a split decision in the semifinals to an Italian.

And then they might have wondered how an Olympic medal winner ended up in Vietnam.

Like the NFL’s Pat Tillman in another war nearly four decades later, Carmody didn’t have to go. He was a career soldier, but after the Olympics he was assigned to teach boxing in Iraq and was supposed to become assistant coach of the U.S. Army boxing team in February 1968.

When the roster came down with his name on it, he could have pulled strings and stayed out of Vietnam.

The war was raging, though, and his friends in the 101st Airborne were already there. To Carmody, the decision was simple.

If he didn’t go, he would never be able to look them in the eye again.

“He said that was his job and if they were going to risk their lives he would, too,” his son said.

Carmody left for Vietnam the day his son was born. Three weeks later he was leading a patrol near Saigon in search of infiltrators when they heard Viet Cong nearby about 9:15 the night of Oct. 26, 1967.

Twenty minutes later, the six soldiers were attacked by a force using grenades, small arms and claymore mines. The 5-foot-2 Carmody, the man known as “Moose” by his fellow soldiers, and four others were killed.

Carmody may have had a premonition when he wrote to an uncle a few days earlier that he worried he might “get unlucky.”

Yellowed newspaper clippings from the time noted his death, mentioning that he had won a bronze medal and that he was survived by his wife, Merry, a daughter and an infant son. Frazier, on his way to becoming the heavyweight champion, attended the funeral in Patterson, N.J.

Carmody may be the only U.S. Olympic medalist killed in combat for his country. U.S. Olympic officials don’t keep records of such things, but say they don’t know of any others.

During the U.S. track and field trials in Sacramento last month, Carmody took his father’s bronze to Sacramento State, where it was placed on display with a photo and boxing gloves signed by all members of the 1964 team.

The pictures, clippings and remembrances of his mother and his father’s friends form the core of Carmody’s memories of his dad.

“It’s been hard for me to put a finger on his personality because everybody says all the good things,” he said. “I know he was kind of quiet and serious, but it’s hard for me to know much more.”

Today, medal winners become instant stars and can have lucrative careers, but the Olympians of 1964 were amateurs in the strictest sense and the attention focused on them was much less intense.

Carmody never made any money from his medal. He turned down a chance to be the Philadelphia Eagles’ trainer because he liked the security of the Army. And he never considered turning pro because he wasn’t interested in fighting for bread and butter.

His son wants him remembered in a special way during the Olympics: for the medal he won for his country, for the life he gave defending it.

“I just want him to be appreciated,” he said.

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