Date Formatting

I imported a large cost ledger database from .pdf and now have a column of months listed like '04-09' for 'April - 2009', however they are all TEXT and not DATES.

When I try to switch this text to a date format, Excel automatically inserts a day AND updates the year to 2010 ('04-09' becomes '4/9/2010').

I have tried every combination of custom format options I can think of, yet the original data is NEVER preserved and is always changed to a mm/dd/2010.

Is there any way to convert this 'mm-yy' TEXT to a 'mm/yy' DATE without it updating to 2010 and inserting the 'dd'???

Any help would be TREMENDOUSLY appreciated, thanks in advance!!!

I apologize for breaching protocol in my unthinking haste, thank you for your assistance despite my belligerence.