Lol, wasn’t trying to advocate for the government at all. And don’t really care if it’s believed. Just saying I met the dude and he seemed like a pretty good guy to me.
At the time I was a low level USAF officer (Captain) assigned to be the US liaison at Central Command for the US embassy in Turkmenistan. It was a temporary, normally very sleepy assignment, since we don’t normally do squat with Turkmenistan, but at that particular moment in time the US decided to do a diplomatic engagement, and I got to travel with the team. It was a fun and somewhat surreal experience. I even got to meet the US ambassador.