Same here, although most of my experience is in the Delta and Saigon rather than the north (but I had a great time visiting Hanoi and detected no animosity).
I think ThankPhero will confirm that the Vietnamese are generally pretty welcoming of Americans, and no matter what, they want to forget the war and move on.
I will say that the Hanoi government can be pretty bizarre; policemen are to be avoided at all costs; instant "village justice" is public, fast, and furious; and speaking badly of the government can get you a 24 hour deportation (also in bad taste, like someone making awful jokes about one's problem-drinker uncle).
I had a great moment in Nov 2003, when the USS Vandegrift docked at the Port Of Saigon, and sailors were taking leave in uniform in downtown Saigon. We (the US) had to make some concessions to (North) Vietnamese pride (e.g., Port Of Saigon is directly behind Ho Chi Minh museum) but I think symbolically even Hanoi could no longer assert a warlike mentality. Oddly, that takes away some of their political power.
For the government it is not so much that they want to forget the war, they very much want to be a sort of protectorate of the US in that they want de facto guarantees against the perceived real threat, China. The US was never perceived as a real long term threat to Viet Nam and the Vietnamese, even as the Communists in the north were contemplating surrender in 69-70. Westerners are a temporary thing. China is everpresent and ever a threat. The Vietnamese focus has been to prevent or to throw off Chinese domination for two thousand years. America is a sometime thing but China will get you smoked.