'' said Condon , who identified Hekmati from the images released by Iranian state television . `` He was n't too nose-to-the-grindstone , but he really worked and put out good effort on behalf of these programs we worked with . '' The work , funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , was aimed at improving communications between U.S. troops and local populations -- a problem with which Hekmati had grappled during service with the Marines in Iraq . He appeared in a video that touted the `` souped-up iPods , '' and he described how American troops sometimes lost hours waiting for a translator to help them pose simple questions . `` He knew enough to be very helpful for us , and he was very helpful to us in terms of understanding the context in which the devices might be used , '' Condon said . `` He had the military experience . '' The Arizona-born , Michigan-raised Hekmati joined the Marines in August 2001 , after high school . His four-year hitch included an assignment to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey , California , and a six-month deployment in Iraq in 2004 , according
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- An Iranian-American ex-Marine accused of spying on his ancestral homeland helped develop an electronic translator for U.S. troops but would n't have been involved in espionage , a onetime colleague said Wednesday . Iranian state television aired what it called a `` confession '' by 28-year-old Amir Hekmati over the weekend . His family said Tuesday that he was arrested in August while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran , and that his statement had to have been coerced . `` It just does n't sound like Amir to me , '' said Sherri Condon , a software engineer who worked with Hekmati in 2008 and 2009 on an effort to develop a two-way , hand-held electronic translator . Condon was the lead author of a 2008 paper describing the research . She thanks Hekmati in the acknowledgments . She described him as `` an entrepreneurial guy '' who sent colleagues a holiday card with a quote from Benjamin Franklin : `` Be always at war with your vices , at peace with your neighbors , and let each new year find you a better man . '' `` I really like him ,