The field of parallel discrete event simulation is entering a period of self-assessment. Fifteen years of investigation has seen great strides in techniques for efficiently executing discrete event simulations on parallel and distributed machines. Still, the discrete event simulation community at large has failed to recognize much of these results. One reason for this is perhaps a disagreement in the focus and purpose of the parallel discrete event simulation research community (primarily computer scientists) and the discrete event simulation community (a widely diverse group including operations researchers, statisticians, as well as computer scientists). An examination of the parallel discrete event simulation problem from a modeling methodological perspective illustrates some of these differences and reveals potentials for their resolution.