Date Import Issues

Suppose you have a simple text file, with dates and amounts, in the following format.

MAR-04, 123
MAR-05, 100
MAR-06, 456

When I import this into Excel (2002 version), it forces the data imported to be :

04-MAR-2007
05-MAR-2007
06-MAR-2007

I am unable to get the date to be interpreted in any kind of format I can use, such as assuming the 1st of the month. Importing the dates as text gets them in correctly; but then I don't have a way to convert them to dates. The Excel date format, when applied, changes them the same way as the import.

Any suggestions on how I can get the correct date out of this data ?

assume cell A1 contains, after you have imported them as text,

MAR-04, 123

In B1 enter =left(a1,6) so you get MAR-04

in C1 enter =value(B1) and format C1 as a date

Welcome to the board
when you import mar-04, 123, what do you want as result?
March 2004 ? the 4th of March ( any year)?