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Veterans and first responders in Greenville now have a place to log onto computers, brush up on digital skills, or strap on a VR headset that can transport them to an aircraft carrier deck or a Washington, D.C. war memorial. Upstate Warrior Solution held a ribbon-cutting on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, to celebrate the opening of its new Connected Learning Center, built inside The Rupert Huse Veteran Center at 770 Pelham Road.
The center was created in partnership with AT&T, according to Upstate Business Journal, and gives veterans and first responders access to computers, digital literacy courses, internet and Wi-Fi meant to help them build digital skills. The outlet describes it as the second center of its kind in South Carolina and the first in Greenville — though AT&T’s own account of a separate West Columbia location, opened in January at the Brookland-Lakeview Empowerment Center, calls that site the state’s very first AT&T Connected Learning Center. The two descriptions aren’t necessarily contradictory, but the dossier doesn’t spell out exactly how AT&T distinguishes the two sites.
What the Greenville Center Offers
Beyond laptops and internet access, the Greenville center features VR technology for job training alongside immersive experiences described as aiding recovery from PTSD, the station’s report notes. That VR component comes from Mynd Immersive, a company that says its technology provides therapeutic experiences to veterans. Its Mynd Inspire for Veterans system lets users virtually visit Washington, D.C.’s war memorials to pay respects, hear stories of women who served, fly on a resupply mission, or tour the Navy’s oldest nuclear aircraft carrier.
Amanda Taylor, AT&T South Carolina’s director of external affairs, said the rea job. State Sen. Jason Elliott framed the opening in broader terms, saying the new AT&T Connected Learning Center at Upstate Warrior Solution is helping support those who serve
How Mynd’s VR System Is Built
Mynd describes its platform as a virtual reality system designed to support cognitive and emotional well-being for veterans, addressing challenges that include anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain and loneliness, according to the company’s own product page for Mynd Inspire for Veterans. The company says its system is informed by research conducted with the VA Immersive team and that it has been a VA vendor since 2018. Mynd says it now supports more than 100,000 veterans across more than 100 state and federal VA facilities, with a library of more than 200 immersive videos that includes veteran-specific content like an Honor Flight, a USO performance and an aircraft-carrier tour.
Nationally, the Department of Veterans Affairs has partnered with Mynd to expand immersive VR experiences to 45 additional VA medical centers, Military.com reports, part of what the outlet frames as a broader institutional shift toward non-pharmacological care for chronic pain, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. The expansion includes headsets deployed in clinical settings as well as units physicians can prescribe for at-home use; Mynd CEO Chris Brickler told the outlet that, under the current setup, those at-home devices aren’t yet transmitting patient data back to providers, with clinicians instead monitoring progress through regular care interactions. Brickler said personal health-record and data collection is planned for a second phase of the rollout, and that Mynd does not present itself as a medical-device company making clinical claims — instead, he said, the VA conducts and validates research on outcomes.
Scale of VR Use Among Veterans Elsewhere
Other facilities offer a sense of how widely the technology has spread. At the Davis and McDaniel Veterans Care Center in Roanoke, about 30 veterans actively use Mynd headsets, activities director Maeghan Hubbard told The Hill. That outlet reports Mynd Immersive has 500 headsets placed in nearly 100 long-term veteran care facilities, working with the VA along with state agencies and veteran-support groups. A 2025 VR program in Biloxi, Mississippi, was described by Military.com as showing strong patient engagement and promising outcomes.
The stakes for veterans dealing with PTSD are significant by the VA’s own figures: about 7 percent of all veterans will experience PTSD, per The Hill’s reporting, while 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans will experience it at some point in their lives. The VA has said its partnership with Mynd allows staff and veterans to work on designing and developing solutions for PTSD treatment. Research on the therapy itself remains preliminary — a systematic review and meta-analysis found that virtual reality exposure therapy may help reduce PTSD symptoms in military veterans, particularly in comparisons of patients against themselves over time, though the effects were more modest when compared against control conditions.
AT&T has framed the Greenville opening as part of a larger company push, saying it aims to open at least 100 Connected Learning Centers by the end of 2027 and help 25 million people get and stay connected by 2030. For now, Upstate veterans and first responders have a new front door inside the Rupert Huse Veteran Center, stocked with laptops, Wi-Fi and headsets built to carry them somewhere else for a while.
Greenville-Science, Tech & Medicine
