Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/May 29, 2010

Colonel Ledick Firest was a field commander in the Rebel Alliance Army whose men survived more battles than any other group during the Galactic Civil War. By 3 ABY, Firest was stationed at the Rebellion's secret headquarters of Echo Base on the remote ice planet Hoth, where he was responsible for carrying out the orders of base commanders General Carlist Rieekan and Major Bren Derlin to Rebel troops in the field. During the Battle of Hoth, Firest used to a maximum the previous combat experience he gained while training as a field commander with the Laramus Base Irregulars mercenary group to help direct the Rebels' defensive evacuation strategy against an Imperial invasion force in order to buy enough time for Echo Base's evacuation transports to escape Hoth.

Firest was left with only five companies of Special Forces soldiers and two flights of snowspeeders to meet an overpowering force of Imperial All Terrain Armored Transport walkers. Knowing that the Empire's primary target during the battle would be Echo Base's power generators to neutralize the Rebels' theater shield protecting the base from orbital bombardment, Firest organized his defensive forces in such a way that funneled the AT-ATs toward the power generators, effectively giving the Empire what they wanted, while surreptitiously leading them away from the base's highly vulnerable evacuation staging area, where the transports were lifting off. Although the Rebels suffered heavy casualties during the Battle of Hoth, Firest's efforts helped many of Echo Base's personnel, including the Alliance High Command, escape the planet. Firest himself survived the battle and escaped aboard the last evacuation transport, the GR-75 medium transport Bright Hope.