U.S. PILOTS IN COLOMBIA DRAWING FIRE FROM CRITICS, GROUND

BOGOTA, Colombia _ Trying to dispel their mercenary image, U.S. contract
pilots waging a drug war in Colombia insist that they are just regular
pilots doing a job - which happens to involve people shooting at them.

Flying crop-dusters and helicopters, the American employees of DynCorp, of
Reston, Va., have been on the front lines of Washington's campaign to
eradicate cocaine- and heroin-producing crops in the South American country.

Three Americans have been killed in two crashes since 1997.

Other aircraft have been hit by gunfire from rebels and paramilitaries who
"tax" and protect the coca and poppy crops.

The pilots have been earning a reputation as daredevils.

A leading Bogota newsmagazine, Semana, called the Americans "mercenarios"
and "Godless Rambos" in a cover story.

In a public relations counteroffensive, three veteran U.S. pilots and a
manager met with reporters in a drab DynCorp briefing room full of maps at
Bogota's airport.

The conversation was monitored by a U.S. Embassy official, who said the
pilots could only be identified by their first names and that they could
not be photographed.

Wearing T-shirts or sport shirts, and in their 30s and 40s, they look like
any regular group of guys you might find in a working-class area of Dallas
or Detroit.

And if they make the news, it won't be good news.

DynCorp pilots earn upward of $75,000 per year, but volunteers for the job
are not plentiful.

"It's tough to find people who are willing to come down here and do this,"
said Bob, a veteran pilot from Texas who wears his hair long and sports a
thick mustache.

"It's a little different," agreed Mark, another crop-duster pilot.

Congress has mandated that up to 300 American contractors and 500 U.S.
military personnel are allowed in Colombia.

DynCorp acknowledged Friday that it already has 335 employees in the
country. But the company and the U.S. Embassy say the contractor limit is
not being broken because only about 100 of the personnel are U.S. citizens,
with the rest coming from Peru, Guatemala and other countries.

"This raises a whole new set of issues, like how the United States may be
trying to circumvent the contractor cap," said Ingrid Vaicius, an analyst
with the Center for International Policy in Washington.

Critics charge the widespread spraying of herbicide is harming the
environment and making people sick. Mark, from his bird's-eye perspective,
said he has seen farmers burning down the rain forest to replace their
fumigated coca fields.

Some of the three dozen American pilots - like Thomas, a lanky Texan - are
veterans of Vietnam and other conflicts.

Others fell into this risky business through classified ads or
word-of-mouth with no prior experience in hostile environments.

Mark, who crisscrossed the United States working as a crop-duster, said he
took the DynCorp job because he could work year-round.

If he works two weeks on, he gets two weeks off, and the company flies him
home during the break.

The pilots carry sidearms on missions and have received survival training.
Beyond facing being shot down, the Americans also risk capture by members
of the 16,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who
earn millions of dollars in the drug trade.

"We're just concerned that we survive the incidents," Bob said.

"We've been hit over solid jungle, we've been shot at by people standing on
the banks of small streams, over coca fields and open fields, in almost
every segment of the flight," he said.