"I personally resent the lack of financial support we give our military with regards to the deaths of young men and women in the field," Hatch said in an interview. "Contrast that with how we treated the 9-11 victims' families. I'm going to do everything in my power to rectify that."

The average award to families from the government's Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund was $2.1 million, although the nearly 3,000 death benefit payouts from the fund ranged between $250,000 to $7.1 million. Nearly 2,700 payments were made to people injured in the 2001 terrorist attacks at an average of $400,000 each, ranging between $500 and $8.6 million.

Congress created the fund in part to protect the airline industry from crippling lawsuits. Eligible families who accepted the lump sum payments signed away their right to sue any U.S. entity over the 9-11 deaths.

In contrast, surviving unmarried spouses of U.S. military service members who die on active duty or whose death resulted from a service-related injury or disease receive a monthly payment from the Department of Veterans Affairs of $993. The benefit, which is adjusted annually for the cost-of-living, also pays $247 monthly per surviving dependent child up to age 18. If a surviving spouse remarries before age 55, the VA payments stop.

The VA also allows survivors to retain active-duty military health and dental care benefits for three years from the date of the service member's death, provides a $680 monthly educational benefit to surviving dependents attending college between the ages of 18 and 26, and makes veteran home loan benefits available to unmarried surviving spouses.

Hatch has not yet drafted legislation and couldn't specify how much he would raise the benefit level or how the increase would be funded. National Guard personnel and reservists killed in combat would be eligible under the plan.

But he said the current federal compensation package for families of soldiers killed in action is woefully inadequate.

"I believe we ought to take care of widows and children of the young men and women who give their lives for us and we ought to do so in a reasonably strong fashion," he said.

Military service organization officials said they welcomed Hatch's pledge to hike death benefits for active duty members. But they expressed skepticism that such a dramatic jump in entitlement funding would jibe with the fiscal austerity preached by Republican congressional leadership and the White House.

"With the deficits they are facing and now with Congress talking about freezing VA benefits and even reducing benefits, I don't know if the atmosphere is receptive to something like that," said Doug Robertson, national legislative director for the American Legion, the largest veterans' organization in the country. "At the same time, I love Senator Hatch to death and I doubt you would find any veterans' organization saying this is terrible idea."

Hatch isn't alone in calling for better financial security for military service members' families. When Congress reconvenes later this month, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., will introduce their Honoring Every Requirement of Exemplary Service (HEROES) Act to increase the maximum life insurance coverage for service members to $400,000 from the current $250,000 cap. It would also raise the death gratuity paid to families of service members killed in combat to $100,000.

Hatch said his quest to have the federal government do more for veterans' families stems from his personal experience. The World War II death of his older brother Jesse Morlan Hatch, a B-24 nose-gunner who was killed on a mission to destroy Nazi oil supplies when Hatch was 10 years old, profoundly affected him.