The army won’t be getting any more troops from North Portland this afternoon—eight angry grandmothers forced the military recruitment center on NE Broadway and 13th to shut down after threatening to stage a sit-in until they were arrested.The grannies, part of a 50-strong protest organized by the newly formed Surge Protection Brigade(SPB)—which is against President Bush’s intent of sending 20,000 more troops to the war in Iraq—put a sign saying “mission accomplished” above the door of the closed recruitment center this afternoon.

“I’m pleased they closed down, that we could disrupt them without getting arrested,” said Sara Graham, a 66-year old retired counselor, and one of the raging grannies. “But we’ll be back next week.”

“New recruits are being given no information about potential exposure to depleted uranium, or the risks involved of a tour of duty in Iraq,” said Marianne Barisonek, a spokeswoman for the SPB. “We feel recruits need to make more informed decisions.”

Cops’ spokesperson Brian Scmautz says the recruitment center decided to close after talking about the protest with a representative from NE Precinct. “If we know somebody is going to be the target of a protest, we don’t want to go arresting folks and tie up valuable police resources,” he says. “There are a lot of other things we can be doing.”

The recruitment center is yet to call us back.