The U.S. Army is in the process of fielding a Squad Synthetic Environment (SSE) at the Land Warrior Testbed located at Fort Benning, Georgia. This state-of-the-art virtual simulation facility consists of nine Dismounted Infantry Simulators, ModSAF 5.0 including newly developed individual combatant simulation capabilities, and two Reconfigurable Ground Vehicle Simulators. The SSE represents the culmination of many years of investment by the government, industry and academia working together to achieve a unique virtual simulation environment aimed squarely at meeting the needs of the infantryman. The Dismounted Battle Space Battle Lab (DBBL) and the US Army Infantry Center (USAIC) at Fort Benning are the proponents for the SSE. It is envisioned that the SSE will be used to support DBBL and USAIC simulation needs across the entire simulation regime, from TEMO to ACR and R&D. In this paper we describe the SSE in some detail, postulate the role of virtual simulation within the modeling and simulation (M&S) domain, and then look to the future and provide our vision of how the SSE can be used to support the Army's M&S needs well into the 21st century.