As has been cussed and discussed here and on the air lately, ARRL
has
petitioned FCC to reduce the number of license classes from six
down to
three, namely Novice, General, and Extra.

If you haven't read the entire petition (it runs somewhere around
35 pages,
each page laden with microscopic-print footnotes) you may have
missed the
fact that there will actually be 5 sub-classes of General.

One-Star General - Post 1987 Technician given a complimentary
convenience-of-the-ARRL field promotion to General

Two-Star General - Previous Conditional given humanitarian
promotion to
General

Three-Star General - Pre 1987 Technician given posthumous
promotion to
General

Four-Star General - General who took an actual General
examination in
modern times at a VE session

Five-Star General - General who took an actual General
examination in front
of a steely eyed FCC official in a noisy drafty government office
in
downtown Fargo and had to walk uphill (both ways) through 10-foot
snowdrifts on Good Friday 1954.

73, de Hans, K0HB