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LARANDIA, Colombia -- They are private U.S. citizens but work on the front lines of America's war on drugs.

Under a little-known program, more than 100 pilots, mechanics and others work for the U.S. State Department in Colombia as part of a program to eradicate Colombia's coca and opium poppy fields.

Some of the Americans fly planes that spray herbicides on the illicit crops. Others fly gunships that accompany the spraying missions. Still others fly hulking transport aircraft or work as aviation mechanics, logistical experts and medics.

A leading Colombian news weekly last year ran a cover story describing the American pilots as "gringo mercenaries" and "lawless Rambos." Some U.S. critics say the private contractors are proxies for the U.S. military in a place where the public would not allow a more direct American military involvement.

"It creates a space for further involvement without putting U.S. soldiers on the ground," said Ingrid Vaicius, a Colombia expert at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank. "The contractors are not watched as closely as U.S. military personnel would be."

But others say private contractors are needed because the U.S. military is stretched thin and attention is focused on Iraq and other hot spots.

Number of contractors limited

The U.S. Congress, concerned about private citizens fighting a dangerous drug war overseas, mandated that only up to 400 U.S. contractors be allowed in Colombia. U.S. officials say there are on average about 120 American pilots and other private contractors in Colombia's anti-narcotics program at any one time.

"We don't even come close to the limit," said one U.S. official in Colombia.

The pilots, interviewed on the condition that they not be identified, downplayed their cowboy image and characterized themselves as regular guys with wives, kids and mortgages--even if their job is anything but ordinary.

From dawn until dusk, 16 American spray planes take off from Larandia's dusty airstrip heading south to the coca fields.

Once there, they swoop down and drop the herbicide glyphosate, making pass after pass just over the tree line, often as they are shot at by leftist rebels and drug traffickers.

The work is endless. Colombia has hundreds of thousands of acres of coca--the raw material for cocaine--planted along steep ravines and in recently cleared jungle terrain.

The fumigation, part of the $1.5 billion U.S.-financed program known as Plan Colombia, has accelerated under recently elected President Alvaro Uribe, who agrees with U.S. officials that fumigation is the fastest way to get rid of the illicit crop.

Herbicide safety in question

Some Colombians say the herbicide causes severe skin rashes and other illnesses. The American pilots at Larandia, a sprawling Colombian military base in a swampy plain, say it's safe.

"Too much OJ will kill you," said a 35-year-old who trains pilots for the program. "Everybody wants to [spray] coca. You don't get much downtime [at Larandia]. It's pretty much all work and no play."

The Americans live in spartan dorms and relax by watching cable television, lifting weights and fishing for piranha at the base's artificial lake. Their pet buzzard took off a while back and hasn't returned.

Some of the pilots are two decades removed from their military careers. Many have had second careers flying for the United Nations and other organizations. They say Colombia is a great place to work, despite being at war.

"Angola, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Sudan, Congo. Africa's got some really bad places," said one transport pilot, listing a few of the countries where he has flown. "I haven't had any problems in Colombia. If you don't go trolling for trouble, you don't find it."

Other Americans used to fly crop dusters or crisscrossed the U.S. dropping retardant on major forest fires. They say they're used to working long hours--"dark to dark," as one pilot described it--in stifling heat and dangerous conditions.

Some say they hooked up with DynCorp, the main U.S. anti-narcotics contractor in Colombia, because of the pay and work schedule: Most pilots work 15 days and then have 15 days off. The most experienced pilots earn more than $100,000 a year.

Many of them are in their late 50s, gray-haired and grandfatherly. The same U.S. official quipped that the presence of all the old American pilots at Larandia makes it look less like a military base than an "old folks home."

"I'm way too young to retire," said one pilot pushing 60. "I'll be doing this till I'm 95."

That is, if he doesn't get killed. Bullets have hit spray planes more than 150 times this year, most fired by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an 18,000-strong rebel group that earns millions of dollars a year taxing and protecting coca fields.

But the trees are the real danger. Flying at 200 miles per hour just above the jungle canopy, pilots say it's difficult to make out a single thin tree sticking up 50 or 60 feet from a field of light-green coca bushes.

Three Americans have been killed in crashes in recent years.

"Most of the people who shoot at us miss," said one 53-year-old pilot as he rested in the cockpit of his aircraft. "I've had a bunch of close calls [with trees] where I've had to duck the plane. You've got to be extremely careful."

FARC targets the planes

If a plane does go down, the pilots are in serious trouble, even though they never fly without two heavily armed helicopter gunships and a third rescue helicopter. Pilots carry pistols and receive survival training.

But the FARC, which has designated the Americans military targets, controls much of the coca-growing region along with the area surrounding the Larandia base.

The FARC has never attacked the base, but some Americans working here believe that construction workers, maids and other Colombian civilians working at Larandia are keeping tabs on the Americans for the rebels.

"I don't know anybody that wants to go off base," said one American logistical expert. "It's there--the sense that the bad guys are surrounding us."

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