[3] David Mingolla is an artillery specialist in the United States Army serving in a near-future Central American war (references are made to then-future "Afghanistan in '89" and a nuclear weapon that destroyed Tel Aviv).
David and Debora leave the city and their former friends and antagonists behind them, deciding that ultimately what matters is their love for one another, the only item that has not been blatantly manipulated.
The fictional work excerpted several times in the novel, Juan Pastorín's short story collection The Fictive Boarding House, gives clues to the nature of the novel and Mingolla's experiences himself in a type of foreshadowing.
The lyrics of Prowler heard or sung or thought among members of Mingolla's unit which bookend Life during Wartime serve this function as well.
As a nod to science fiction author Philip K. Dick's work, the text itself does not present a clear or objective account of what truly happened to Mingolla or what was hallucination on his part.