If you came of age during the sixties or knew someone who did, then you have probably heard stories about someone like the protagonist of Manhattan Spiritual. Matthew Parkrow, a highly decorated Viet-Nam veteran, is drummed out of the army for committing what he considers an act of conscience--leading a charge of Hippies during the march on the Pentagon in 1967 while serving as part of the Army security forces there. Later, while studying for his masters in Literature at Columbia University, Matthew becomes embroiled in the 1968 riots and is a participant and/or witness to major upheavals during this period while he searches desperately for a man whom he believes may be his long lost best friend, Ward Crampton who went missing in action in Viet-Nam several years earlier. Matthew's search leads to the inexorable conclusion in the desert near White Sands Missile Range where, instead of his lost friend, Matthew faces the legends and realities of his generation's birth at Ground Zero.