Michael Prysner

Michael (Mike) Prysner (born 1983) is a former US army radar operator and political activist best known for a stirring speech against the US occupation of Afghanistan widely circulated via YouTube.
Mike Prysner, 27, grew up in Tampa. His U.S. Army unit was sent to Iraq in the first weeks of the war to secure oil fields. He said he came to believe he was really there "to seize control of their natural resources." He now lives in Los Angeles and works for the ANSWER Coalition: Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.
Prysner grew up in Tampa, Florida and joined the U.S. Army at 17 years old just before entering his senior high school year, starting basic training in June 2001.
Prysner wrote a letter to US filmmaker Michael Moore in September 2003 stating that he had turned down a writing scholarship to a state university to join the Army.
After six months training as a radar operator, Prysner was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division based in Fort Drum, New York. In March 2003, his company was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade and sent to the Iraq to secure oil fields during the first weeks of the war. .
Prysner later wrote that he had spent 12 months in Iraq, "...doing everything from prisoner interrogations, to ground surveillance missions, to home raids." He blamed the Bush administration’s "failure to anticipate the resistance of the Iraqi people" for inadequate soldier numbers. He left the Army in 2005.
Prysner was involved in several anti-war marches on the Pentagon in Washington and during one of these, on Sept 15 2007, was arrested with other veterans and protesters for attempting to pass a police blockade.
In 2008, Prysner ran for US Congress in the 22nd District, Florida, as a candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, challenging first-term Democratic incumbent Ron Klein.
In 2008 he also joined with other activists to set up an anti-war and anti-racism movement called March Forward.
While Prysner is not a member of the communist party, he does have plans to tour Australia to speak at a Marxist Education conference in June 2011.

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