use warnings;
use strict;

use DateTime::Format::Strptime;

my $str = 'Jul 9 2009 11:55 PM';

my $parser = DateTime::Format::Strptime->new(
  pattern   => '%b %d %Y %I:%M %p',
  time_zone => 'America/New_York',
);

my $date = $parser->parse_datetime( $str );

print $date->epoch, "\n";