Background: New embark, diving for the cavern and trying to make it work. I want a part-time milita of my miners and woodcutter, and I want them to carry and use their picks and ax when off-duty, and keep using them when they go on-duty. I have the three of them assigned to a squd, that is scheduled to be off-duty forever. Whenever I need them, I use the (s)quads menu to issue specific move or kill orders, then cancel the order when it's no longer needed. So far, so good- they go from civilian to military status whenn orders are issued, and return when orders are cancelled. BUT, often, when they go from one status to the other, they will drop their pick or ax at the ground and refuse to pick it up.
I've noticed that if (while civilians) I assign them the specific weapon that they are carrying, they will either not drop it, or immediately pick it up again (I can't tell which). If I assign them "Individual choice", or "Battleax" or "Picks (foreign)", they will sometimes keep their tool/weapon, and sometimes not. In any case, they wait until their status changes to drop it
The reverse happens when returning them to civilian duty. Consistently, if they have a weapon assigned, they drop it and it is ignored, even though there are no other tools to use to do their job. If they have no weapon assigned, they immediately drop it.
Is there any way to have them just keep using the same item as a tool and a weapon?
EDIT: Tried to upgrade one of my miners to a steel pick. When one specific pick was assigned as part of his equipment, he would only select the assigned weapon when the mining labor was disabled. Once he got the steel pick, he seems to use it, so long as he has the copper pick assigned to him. My other miner and woodcutter prefer to go into combat barehanded unless I reissue their equipment after reactivating them.