A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps and two men who met years on opposite sides of prison bars. Rob Sanchez was sentenced as a teenager to 15 years for a nonviolent drug offense. He's now a social worker in New York City. Don Harner lives in Reno, Nevada. He worked in corrections for nearly three decades. The two met virtually for StoryCorps, where Sanchez remembered his first day in prison.
ROB SANCHEZ: I'm 19 years old. I'm a month away from being a dad. I remember feeling like, I'll be home soon. And I never went home. It got to a point where I felt like I was born in there.
DON HARNER: No kidding. You did almost more time inside than you'd had life up to that point.
SANCHEZ: Right. I'll never forget that feeling, man, where life on the outside felt like it never really existed.
HARNER: Here's a thing about being a CO for 27 years. You shut your emotions off. You just flip that switch, and you go handle whatever needs to be handled. While you were inside, did you have to turn off your emotions?
SANCHEZ: The first time I saw somebody getting cut across the face, it horrified me. But after a while, that stuff stopped bothering me. And I kept saying to myself, it bothers me that that doesn't bother me. I wanted to make sure that by the time I was done with my 15th year, that those things started to bother me again. Let me ask you this, Don. What has life been like after prison for you?
HARNER: You know, if there's tension in a room, I know where it is. I know where it's coming from. I've already planned my exit. I still sit with my back to a wall. I'm constantly scanning for weapons.
SANCHEZ: Just like you said, I am hyper aware of everything that happens to me.
HARNER: You know, when I first started, I had, kind of, will say, a very black-and-white view of it. By the end, I had seen good people do bad things and bad people do good things. And I realized that we're all flawed human beings.
SANCHEZ: You know, something that I think people get wrong about people who are incarcerated is that people can't be salvaged or saved. So I have to live a good life that will show people that the people that come behind me can do the same.
HARNER: That's a heavy burden. Man, I commend you. Rob, I literally could have hours of conversation with you.
SANCHEZ: Yes. If you ever come to New York, I'll take you around. You can have some Dominican food.
HARNER: You're speaking my language, now, brother.
SANCHEZ: Let's connect. And I got you, Don.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTÍNEZ: Rob Sanchez and Don Harner speaking as part of StoryCorps' One Small Step program. It brings together strangers across divides, and you can record your own interview with a stranger as part of Connect 250. It's a new project from StoryCorps and MORNING EDITION celebrating America's 250th birthday. You'll be matched with someone from a different part of the country where you can talk about your lives and help create a time capsule of American stories. Sign up at connect.250.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.