Commissioned by The Catholic University of America Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Murry Sidlin, Dean, as part of the collective composition: Songs of the Forgotten War.

Each work is meant to serve as a musical poem that illuminates and transforms the statue [from the Korean War Memorial]. The comments of Maurice Saylor on his work "terse Metamorphosis: Civilian to Soldier" are representative of the musical effort to speak for a mute and forgotten figure from history: "The statue represented here has a face of stunned disillusionment, as if to say: 'A year ago I was studying in school, drinking with friends, and having a great time, so how did I end up across the world, knee-deep in mud with a gun in tote?' My composition takes ideas which are youthful, bodacious, optimistic, and audacious, and transforms them into something still audacious, but now also aggressive and violent." – Emanuel Pastreich, Dynamic-Korea

In most cases, brevity precluded all but the broadest gestures, although the one-two punch of Maurice Saylor's "Terse Metamorphosis: Citizen to Soldier"…made an impression. – Andrew Lindemann Malone, Washington Post.