[2] Vermeule entered Harvard University in 1943, in the same year as his father's suicide and the continued escalation of World War II prompted him to join the United States Army.
In the Army he studied Japanese and was sent to the Pacific Theater, where he stayed in Japan after the war as a language expert, attaining the rank of captain.
From there he shifted to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of archaeology until 1957 when was appointed curator of classical collections for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
His term as curator was marked by the purchase of two large vases portraying the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, a Roman portrait of an old man, and a Minoan gold double ax.
He trained several curators, including Marion True of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Carlos Picon.