Michael Prysner

Michael D. Prysner (born June 15, 1983) is an American socialist political activist. He is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq as a specialist. His duties in Iraq included ground surveillance, home raids, and interrogation of prisoners. According to Prysner, these experiences led him to take an anti-war stance.

Education
Prysner is a graduate of Sickles High School in Tampa, Florida, and Florida Atlantic University.

Military career
Prysner joined the army in 2001 when he was 17 and left the military in 2005. He had basic training at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma. After basic training he was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum New York. Prysner's company participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and he served there for 12 months. While in the army he attained the rank of corporal.

Activism
Prysner is the co-founder of March Forward!, an organization of active-duty members of the U.S. military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that encourages active-duty service personnel to resist deployment and seek an honorable discharge by being a conscientious objector.

In March 2008, Prysner was a member of a panel discussing the topic Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan in Maryland. He spoke about his time in Iraq as a soldier and his personal views about the two wars. This address became known as the "Our Real Enemies" speech.

Prysner is a member of Party for Socialism and Liberation and A.N.S.W.E.R. In 2008, he ran a write-in campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida's 22nd congressional district.

In November 2011, Prysner was arrested in Occupy Los Angeles. He was released after posting bail.

On September 19, 2021, Prysner interrupted former U.S. President George W. Bush's speech in Beverly Hills, California. He demanded an apology for lying about weapons of mass destruction, connections to 9/11, and causing the deaths of a million Iraqis. He also stated "You sent me to Iraq." and "My friends are dead because you lied."

Prysner is on the National Board of Directors for Veterans for Peace.

Media production
Prysner is a producer and co-writer for the program The Empire Files, with his wife Abby Martin. English-language Telesur canceled the show in 2018, and it later moved to a web publishing model. Prysner, Martin, and other Telesur contract journalists had their funding blocked by the application of United States sanctions against Venezuela. Academic Stuart Davis cites the cancellation as an example of how United States sanctions hamper public funding of media production in Venezuela.

He performed the rap "Skit 6" on the album Soundtrack to the Struggle.

, he hosted the Eyes Left podcast with former US Army Cadet and Afghanistan War veteran Spenser Rapone.

Personal life
Prysner is married to journalist Abby Martin. They have two children.