The USS Tarawa is known as the "Big T," and the 820-foot, 38,900-ton amphibious assault ship casts a big new shadow in Middle Loch Harbor.

The Tarawa (LHA 1) arrived at the Inactive Ships yard under tow from San Diego last Monday, the Navy said.

It's the second time an aircraft carrier-like amphibious assault ship has been part of the inactive fleet in Pearl Harbor in recent years. Her sister ship, the USS Belleau Wood, was here in 2006.

The Belleau Wood was stripped of electronics and gear and wrung free of every drop of fuel and oil possible before being sunk in the Rim of the Pacific, or Rimpac, naval exercise that year.

According to the Naval Sea Systems Command, Tarawa is "out of commission in reserve," a category of ship designated for potential mobilization.

As such, it receives the maximum maintenance possible with available funds. Installed equipment will remain in place. The Tarawa was decommissioned on March 31 at Naval Base San Diego.

The ship completed a 14th and final Western Pacific deployment last June, and returned to San Diego from an exercise in the Panama Canal zone on Aug. 29. The "Big T" was the lead ship of its class, and was commissioned in 1976.

It would sail with more than 960 officers and crew, more than 2,000 Marines, and helicopters and AV-8B Harrier jump jets. Tarawa participated in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as well as Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

MRAPS TO KUWAIT

The 1,200 soldiers of the Hawai'i National Guard's 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Kuwait who make convoy escort runs up into Iraq have received more than 50 big Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, officials said.

The vehicles have a "V" hull that deflect roadside bomb blasts away from crew, and augment armored Humvees.

Both the 1st Squadron, 299th Cavalry and the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry have the escort mission, but the 299th has not been able to take full advantage of its MRAPs on the roads of Iraq, officials said.

According to the Hawai'i National Guard, training and fielding with the MRAPs was not conducted at the same time, and the 100th was able to get their vehicles on the road faster.

The more than 1,700 Hawai'i National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers in Kuwait are expected to begin heading back to a mobilization station at Fort Hood, Texas, early in August for the return home.