It's not that hard to throw an accurate short pass. Harris should have been made to practice that aspect over and over and over until he got good at it.
Many, many years ago when I was active duty AF I had to go TDY to our missle warning site at Clear, north of Fairbanks. I also had to visit our radar site out at Shemya frequently. The joke was it wasn't the end of the world, but you could see it from there. I'm not sure it was a joke.