Here's one for military history buffs who might be visiting Edinburgh in the future.

[Jock Scot]

I much admire the great respect for history and tradition in the British regiments. I'm curious, do recruits get the option of enlisting for a particular regiment, or are they assigned by some other system? And once assigned, do they spend all, or at least most, of their service in the same regiment?

Things may have changed a tad with all the various Regimental amalgamations, but I think that even so, most British Regiments still have a recruiting area. When the "County" Regiments and the "Highland" Regiments were in place, then a large proportion---not all--- of the men were local, however, Regiments of the Guards, Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers to name but three examples, will recruit from wider areas.I think a "choice" does exist, but as many of us know, the military idea of "choice" is rather at odds with how a civilian may define "choice"! It was and seemingly still is not unusual that a soldier could spend the whole of his military career within a Regiment. Of course a time away, with a specialist unit, or on attachment to another unit may well occur during their time within a Regiment.