SINGAPORE—Insisting that he didn’t know how they had made such a simple mistake, an embarrassed U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reportedly excused himself from the Shangri-La Dialogue Asian defense summit Friday after realizing America was not in Asia. “Oh God, sorry about that, we’re not even in the right ballpark here,” said the Defense Secretary, who reportedly grew visibly flushed after learning from an aide that the closest part of the Asian continent was nearly 5,000 miles away from the United States, before slowly slinking out of the gathering of allied nations. “Maybe we saw the letter ‘A’ and just assumed it was about us? Sorry, I don’t know why we’re here. Everyone just get on with whatever you were doing. We’ll see ourselves out.” At press time, Austin had reportedly paused at the catering table and grabbed a handful of hors d’oeuvres to at least make the 19 hour and 45 minute plane trip worth something.
