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[Legendary_Catsmith]

How many of you Forters keep a standing army on duty at all times?  At what population level do you start?  If you don't keep a standing army, how often do you activate your dorfs to spar, train, and otherwise hurt themselves in interesting ways?  What does your arms/armor stockpile look like?  Do you assign dorfs private weapon/armor caches?  Or do you just pick a few guys that are idling and stick some spears in their hands whenever it becomes necessary?

tl;dr how do you prefer to organize your armed forces?

[Frelock]

Usually, I use a system which hasn't failed me yet.  All male immigrants from the second wave on get drafted, until I have 31 in the melee military(only male because I don't want a champion tantruming because her baby just got offed as she was using it as a shield).  Start them all off wrestling.  First one to champion gets the title "Commander."  Next two get "Captain," next four get "Sargent," next eight get "Corporal" and the final 16 get "Private," whether they're champions or not.  Those who get injuries which make them unable to spar get "Support" and are given crossbows.  Each captain gets two sargents, who get two corporals, who get two privates.  Promotions due to death are done on a case-by-case basis. 
The commander is always standing down, sparring.  The only time he's called to duty is in the case of megabeasts and sieges.  Also serves as executioner for any POW's.
Captains and their underlings are rotated on duty/standing down every two seasons, starting when the second captain spot is assigned. 
Sargents are divided; one just inside the main entrance to the fort, one guarding any external resources (lumber yard, et ced). 
Corporals are the squad leaders and the privates stick with them(keeps the rookies together where there's strength in numbers).

Armor is assigned from the top down whenever I produce it, and always when the squad is standing down.  Weapons are only assigned when enough shields have been produced and everyone is in at least leather armor.

Mining forces are kept as a backup militia, and are trained up to proficient wrestling whenever there's no digging to do.  If they happen to get elite wrestler status, they're given the title "hero" and treated like the commander(who was probably dead if the miners were fighting anyways).

[Sutremaine]

All male immigrants from the second wave on get drafted, until I have 31 in the melee military(only male because I don't want a champion tantruming because her baby just got offed as she was using it as a shield).

Any military dwarf above recruit won't get married, so in exchange for checking your draftees for marriage certificates you can double your pool of military.

I normally pull my military from the second wave onwards, with undesirable moodable skills being first in line and peasants next. One, I have slow learner on dwarves and military duty is the best way to overwrite their woodcrafting, and two, I don't want gibbering Urist-come-latelys supplanting my trained founders.

[ungulateman]

That's a good system you have. I use a simplified chain of command running General, Lieutenant, Major, Captain, Private. I have one General at all times, he is usually the one who reaches Legendary first. The Lieutenant is directly below the General and only reports to him. I have two Majors, who command a Captain each, plus two other Captains who supervise the ranged forces and the siege engine guard respectively. Each military-captain has 1-4 Privates below them. The ranged forces captain commands any crippled dwarves who can't spar, and the siege engine guard is generally 2-3 dwarves, more if I have several groups of siege engines.

[Dwarf]

Usually, I use a system which hasn't failed me yet.  All male immigrants from the second wave on get drafted, until I have 31 in the melee military(only male because I don't want a champion tantruming because her baby just got offed as she was using it as a shield).  Start them all off wrestling.  First one to champion gets the title "Commander."  Next two get "Captain," next four get "Sargent," next eight get "Corporal" and the final 16 get "Private," whether they're champions or not.  Those who get injuries which make them unable to spar get "Support" and are given crossbows.  Each captain gets two sargents, who get two corporals, who get two privates.  Promotions due to death are done on a case-by-case basis. 
The commander is always standing down, sparring.  The only time he's called to duty is in the case of megabeasts and sieges.  Also serves as executioner for any POW's.
Captains and their underlings are rotated on duty/standing down every two seasons, starting when the second captain spot is assigned. 
Sargents are divided; one just inside the main entrance to the fort, one guarding any external resources (lumber yard, et ced). 
Corporals are the squad leaders and the privates stick with them(keeps the rookies together where there's strength in numbers).

Armor is assigned from the top down whenever I produce it, and always when the squad is standing down.  Weapons are only assigned when enough shields have been produced and everyone is in at least leather armor.

Mining forces are kept as a backup militia, and are trained up to proficient wrestling whenever there's no digging to do.  If they happen to get elite wrestler status, they're given the title "hero" and treated like the commander(who was probably dead if the miners were fighting anyways).

Hell... I will use this from now on.

[Spong]

I have a much more laidback approach. I don't micromanage their equipment I just let them take what they like from the stockpile and try and make sure that as much as possible I'm providing decent quality gear. Also my entire force is standing down unless there's a crisis in which case I activate them and send them to their posts. Happier and well trained soldiers this way.
Structure wise there isn't any ranking but all my soldiers are trained in wrestling and either axe, hammer or mace apart from some pure wrestlers who just train at unarmed. Marksdwarves get wrestling and hammer training.
I tend to put my marksdwarves in dedicated ranged squads but other squads are a mix of hammerers, macers, axedwarves and pure wrestlers. On top of that I often create an elite speardwarf squad for dealing with megabeasts. I also have one or two champions trained in axe, sword, mace, spear, hammer and unarmed, who are solo in their own squad: these are my gladiators but also perform a few other functions.
A big proportion of the army is just marksdwarves as my fortifications are designed to maximise crossfire killzones.

[Airpi]

I usually start building a core squad at around pop 20 (although I've started playing with Orcs, so maybe I need to change this), they train basically all the time, and get the best equipment I can muster. I take a stepped approach to their training, at first they only get armor/shields, and once I'm confident that they won't murder each other they get weapons, usually a mix of hammer/axe/sword. Once I have a decent sized squad or two like that, I start conscripting the most useless migrants. They get spears/crossbows, leather armor, wooden shields, and iron caps. They don't train as much, I'll usually leave them out on patrols, mainly to make their lives miserable (they're conscripts ffs!), but also to make sure the crossbowdwarfs don't skill up to the point of Dwarven Spec-Ops team.

Huh. Dwarven Spec-Ops team. If their were a decent long-term way to train Ambusher that could be interesting. Probably useless, but interesting.

Also this is all based on default invaders, I've started playing with orcs but so far it's either been "YOU WILL BE KILL BY ORCS" or I don't see them at all, so I haven't really adapted that much.

[Ashery]

While I micromanage equipment a bit, I have limited/no squad organization.

Current military totals: 45/225, twenty of which are in the fortress/royal guard. First recruits come during the first immigration wave, of which typically six get drafted. Steel armor is crafted as soon as possible, but all melee dwarves are given base quality silver weapons (Yes, even to fight with) unless they get a nerve injury that will keep them from sparring further. The silver weapons don't matter too much when you have legendary+3 armor use.

Any melee champion that suffers a nerve injury gets placed on permanent guard duty right outside the fort's main entrance. These dwarves serve as first responders to any ambush/thief. The other squads (2-3 per melee squad) are only activated when a caravan is entering my map for the first time (I've learned from experience to send squads to the caravan's point of entrance immediately), when I'm clear cutting the forest, or if there is some type of direct threat already on the map. Marksdwarves, once they hit champion level, are given patrol routes on my main battlements to prevent them from wasting more practice bolts. I'll get around to cross training them in wrestling/hammer eventually. I'll probably change how I train marksdwarves once the next version comes out, though.

Note that my marksdwarves are my last line of defense, not my first. My melee dwarves charge out and encounter the invading force (lightly modded goblins) head on. My best marksdwarf has only six kills, while my best melee champ has sixty-seven.

I tend to simplify the gearing process by keeping everything rather homogeneous. All melee dwarves get a base quality silver warhammer and whatever steel armor my armorcrafter is able to crank out. The micromanagement only comes into play early on when I don't have access to steel and later on once I discover HFS.

[Grendus]

I train up about 40-50 to legendary wrestler, then give them steel armor and silver weapons and train them up to legendary with weapons. Then they stay on duty permanently. Give them nice rooms and let them sleep there to keep them from risking a tantrum spiral.

[Hyndis]

I just start off everyone with wrestling. I also order them to equip a shield and plate armor.

As armor becomes available they will equip themselves.

Same goes with weapons. At first there are no weapons available so they wrestle, but once my weaponsmith gets up and running they pick up weapons and use them.

If anyone is killed or maimed while training, too bad, so sad. Wounded dwarves are not excused from duty. If they can manage to survive long enough to improve their abilities on goblins then they're lucky. Otherwise they're just a spear catcher and the next recruit will strip that armor from the soldier's corpse.

I don't use detailed squad management. I just break my military up into squads of 3-4 random dwarves and station them where I need them, usually all in the same pile. That way if one squad leader goes off for naptime he won't drag the entire army with him.